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>>> Kubo And The Two Strings is a stop-motion surprise

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS (Travis Knight). 101 minutes. Opens Friday (August 19). See listingRating: NNNN


The latest stop-motion production from the Laika animation house – and the first to be directed by its CEO, Travis Knight – Kubo And The Two Strings is a magnificent mashup of Japanese mysticism and samurai stories, making up its mythology as it goes. 

Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson) lives in a small village where he tells tales and plays music and looks after his ailing mother, not entirely believing her stories of a Moon King who’s bent on finding them.

The stories are true, of course, and soon Kubo is on the run, accompanied by a talking monkey (Charlize Theron) and a samurai beetle (Matthew McConaughey) as he searches for the mystical suit of armour that can protect him.

As with Coraline, ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls, the real star is the world in which the story is told. Knight and his animators conjure a vivid reality with an exquisite crumpled-paper aesthetic and a sense of endless possibility. 

It flows like a dream, and if it slightly overreaches in its last movement, well, I’d rather see a film stumble because it tried to juggle too many ideas rather than get by with too few. 

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