Kubo and the Two Strings

Kubo and the Two Strings
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Travis Knight
Produced by	Travis Knight Arianne Sutner
Screenplay by	Marc Haimes Chris Butler
Story by	Shannon Tindle Marc Haimes
Starring	Charlize Theron Art Parkinson Ralph Fiennes Rooney Mara George Takei Matthew McConaughey
Music by	Dario Marianelli
Edited by	Christopher Murrie
Production company	Laika
Distributed by	Focus Features
Release dates	August 13, 2016 (2016-08-13) (MIFF) August 19, 2016 (2016-08-19) (United States)
Running time	102 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$60 million[2]
Box office	$69.5 million[2]

Kubo and the Two Strings is a 2016 American 3D stop-motion fantasy action-adventure film directed and co-produced by Travis Knight (in his directorial debut), and written by Marc Haimes and Chris Butler. It stars the voices of Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Ralph Fiennes, Rooney Mara, George Takei, and Matthew McConaughey. It is Laika's fourth feature film produced. The film revolves around Kubo, who has magical powers and whose left eye was stolen. Accompanied by Monkey and Beetle, he must subdue the Sisters, Raiden the Moon King and his army of evil spirits.

The film premiered at Melbourne International Film Festival on August 13, 2016, and was released by Focus Features in the United States on August 19. It grossed $69.5 million worldwide.

Plot

In ancient Japan, Kubo (Art Parkinson) is a one-eyed young boy who lives with his ill mother, Sariatu (Charlize Theron), in a cave atop a mountain. Every day he tells stories to the local villagers by magically manipulating origami that moves under music played from Kubo's shamisen. He tells the tale of a samurai warrior named Hanzo who is Kubo's missing father. When the town bell chimes signaling sunset, Kubo returns to his mother, as she explicitly warns him to not stay outside after dark or Sariatu Sisters (Rooney Mara) and his grandfather the Moon King will come to take his remaining eye.

One day, Kubo learns of an Obon festival which has a ceremony where family members communicate with deceased loved ones. He arrives at a cemetery and tries to speak to Hanzo, but leaves in anger when his father does not respond. As Kubo stays out after sundown, Sariatu's Sisters find him and attack. His mother arrives to fend them off. She sends Kubo away using her magic, telling him to find his father's magic armor. He takes a lock of her hair before she charges at her Sisters.

Kubo wakes up and meets Monkey (Charlize Theron), his little wooden snow monkey charm that was brought to life by his mother's magic. She informs him that his mother is dead, his village is destroyed, and he must move on to survive. The next morning, Monkey wakes Kubo and points out "Little Hanzo", one of Kubo's origami that folded himself and came to life at night. Little Hanzo shows Kubo and Monkey the way to his father's armor, where they are greeted by Beetle (Matthew McConaughey), an amnesiac samurai who was cursed to take the form of a beetle and claims to have been Hanzo's apprentice. He joins them on their quest when he finds out that Kubo is Hanzo's son. The Sisters discover Kubo is looking for his father's armor, and split up to find him.

Little Hanzo leads them to an underground cave known as the "Hall of Bones" where they find Hanzo's sword on the skull of a giant skeleton. The skeleton attacks them as they try to reclaim the sword, but they defeat it and escape. Kubo uses his magic to create a boat out of fallen leaves, and they set sail across the Long Lake and arrive floating over the next piece of Hanzo's armor, his breastplate. The breastplate lies below the lake in the Garden of Eyes, where intruders are entranced and paralyzed by a giant monster's eyes by showing secrets before they are eaten by it. Beetle and Kubo dive in to retrieve the breastplate. One of the Sisters attacks and Monkey manages to defeat her, but is badly wounded in the process. Kubo recovers the breastplate, but is immediately entranced. In his entranced state, he has a revelation: Monkey is in fact his mother, her spirit reincarnated into physical form. Beetle rescues Kubo and the dilapidated boat is restored with Kubo and Monkey's own magic.

On a nearby island, the trio rest in a cave as Monkey explains that before she met Kubo's father, she and her Sisters were sent to kill Hanzo. Instead, she fell in love with him, and gave birth to Kubo. Her Sisters and Kubo's grandfather felt betrayed and have since branded her as an enemy. Kubo has a dream in which he is greeted by Raiden (Ralph Fiennes), a blind old man who shows him where to find his father's helmet, the final piece of armor. They head to his father's damaged fortress to reclaim the armor, but are ambushed by the remaining Sister who reveals that Beetle is in fact Kubo's father, Hanzo, whom they had cursed as retribution for "taking" their sister from them. Beetle is killed, and Monkey sacrifices herself to allow Kubo to obtain his shamisen and kill her Sister with it, breaking two of the strings in the process. After Kubo learns that his village's bell is the helmet, he breaks the last string on his shamisen and uses his magic to fly back to his village.

After reclaiming the helmet, he is greeted by Raiden, who is revealed to be his grandfather, the Moon King. He wants to take Kubo's other eye in order to join his "family" and make him immortal like him. Kubo refuses and an angered Raiden transforms into a dragon and attacks. Despite landing several blows, Kubo is beaten and thrown into the village cemetery where the beast corners both him and the villagers. Kubo sheds the armor and re-strings his shamisen, using his mother's hair, his father's bowstring, and a strand of his own hair. He uses its magic to recruit the spirits of the deceased villagers, showing that memories are the strongest magic of all and can never be destroyed. Kubo uses the spirits to shield himself and the villagers from the Moon Beast and then engulfs him in their magic. The Moon King is defeated and becomes mortal, and in his human form has no recollection of who or what he was. The villagers show compassion and forgiveness and tell him that he was a man of many positive traits, thus convincing him that he was a good man.

At the end, Kubo is able to speak with his parents whose spirits appear beside him, as he sets their lanterns afloat across the lake.

Cast

• Art Parkinson as Kubo, the main protagonist of the story.
• Charlize Theron as Monkey/Sariatu, Kubo's mother and one of the Moon King's daughters, reincarnated in a little Japanese snow monkey charm, known as Monkey, after she is killed by her Sisters.
• Matthew McConaughey as Beetle/Hanzo, Kubo's father, who was transformed by the Sisters into a beetle-like hybrid with no recollection of his true identity, believing himself to be Hanzo's apprentice.
• Ralph Fiennes as Raiden the Moon King, Kubo's grandfather, the Sisters and Sariatu's father and the main antagonist of the story.
• Rooney Mara as the Sisters, Kubo's evil aunts, Sariatu's younger sisters, and the Moon King's twin daughters.
• George Takei as Hosato, a villager who teaches his daughter their Japanese culture and traditions.
• Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Hashi, a villager and Kubo's biggest fan.
• Brenda Vaccaro as Kameyo, a villager and an elderly but young-hearted widow who is a grandmother figure to Kubo.
• Meyrick Murphy as Mari
• Minae Noji as Minae
• Alpha Takahashi as Aiko
• Laura Miro as Miho
• Ken Takemoto as Ken

Production

On December 22, 2014, Laika and Focus Features announced that production had begun on a 3D stop-motion animated film, Kubo and the Two Strings. Laika's CEO Travis Knight would make his directorial debut with the film, based on an original story by Shannon Tindle, and written by Marc Haimes and Chris Butler.^[3] Knight and Arianne Sutner would produce the film.^[3]

Voice casting included Art Parkinson, Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron, Rooney Mara and Ralph Fiennes.^[4] Other voice actors in the film include George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brenda Vaccaro, Meyrick Murphy, Minae Noji, and Alpha Takahashi.^[5]

Dario Marianelli composed the score for the film.^[6]

Soundtrack

Track listing

Release

The film screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival on August 13, 2016,^[7] and was theatrically released in the United States on August 19, 2016.^[8]

Box office

As of October 3, 2016, Kubo and the Two Strings has grossed $47.9 million in North America and $21.4 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $69.4 million, against a budget of $60 million.^[2]

In the United States, the film was released on August 19, 2016, alongside Ben-Hur and War Dogs, and was projected to gross $12–15 million from 3,200 theaters in its opening weekend.^[9] It made $515,000 from its Thursday night previews and $4.1 million on its first day. It went on to gross $12.6 million in its opening weekend, finishing 4th at the box office.^[10]

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 97%, based on 160 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Kubo and the Two Strings matches its incredible animation with an absorbing—and bravely melancholy—story that has something to offer audiences of all ages."^[11] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 84 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[12] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.^[13]

Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com awarded the film 3.5 stars out of 4, saying that "one of the most impressive elements of Kubo and the Two Strings—besides its dazzling stop-motion animation, its powerful performances and its transporting score—is the amount of credit it gives its audience, particularly its younger viewers."^[14] IGN's Samantha Ladwig gave the film 7.5/10, stating that the film is "Dark, twisted, and occasionally scary, but also with humor, love, and inspiration."^[15] Jesse Hassenger, of The A.V. Club, praised the film, saying that "no American animation studio is better-suited to dreamlike plotting than Laika, and the animation of Kubo is truly dazzling, mixing sophistication and handmade charm with inspired flow."^[16]

Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post gave the film 4/4 stars, stating that the film is "both extraordinarily original and extraordinarily complex, even for a grown-up movie masquerading as a kiddie cartoon (which it kind of is)."^[17] In The New York Times, Glenn Kenny said that "the movie’s blend of stop-motion animation for the main action with computer-generated backgrounds is seamless, creating what is the most visually intoxicating of all Laika's movies."^[18] Peter Debruge of Variety wrote that ""Kubo" offers another ominous mission for a lucky young misfit, this one a dark, yet thrilling adventure quest that stands as the crowning achievement in Laika's already impressive oeuvre."^[19]

Jonathan Pile, member of the British film magazine Empire, wrote about the film: "Yet another success for stop-motion giants Laika ... boasts big laughs and effective scares in a typically gorgeous animated tale."^[20]

Accolades

Home Media

Kubo and the Two Strings was released on DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital media on November 22nd, 2016.^[26]

References

External links

• Official website
• Kubo and the Two Strings at the Internet Movie Database
• Kubo and the Two Strings at Box Office Mojo
• Kubo and the Two Strings at Rotten Tomatoes
• Kubo and the Two Strings at Metacritic