KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS (Travis Knight, Arianne Sutner)
Entirely bad-ass. A visual
stunner like Laika's previous three, but this time with a more
strongly developed narrative for those jaw-dropping images to prop
up. Pulls no punches with its frequent intensity, judges moments of
levity well, and builds its internal mythology with confident ease.
If you must blink, do it before the film starts. You won't want to
miss a single frame.
MOANA
(John Musker, Ron Clements, Osnat Shurer)
Though far from the studio's
best, here's to another respectable entry in Disney's storied library
of animated fairy tales. It atones for a somewhat uneven pace and
clumsy character arcs with a soundtrack full of goodies and vibrant
character animation. Legendary vets Clements & Musker have
clearly not lost a step in the transition to CG, 'cause this movie of
theirs is so pretty!
THE
RED TURTLE (Michael Dudok de Wit, Toshio Suzuki)
A gorgeously rendered blend of
magic realism and pantomime about a stranded shipwreck survivor
finding fulfillment and family on a lonely island. The colour choices
in every scene are utter perfection, and it's surprising just how
much is communicated through its limited facial animation. While it
may have worked better as a short film, a feature that looks this
good is worth every minute.
ZOOTOPIA
(Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Clark Spencer)
While
its narrative formula feels conspicuously
compartmentalized as it hops predictably from Key Scene #1 to Key
Scene #2 and so forth, this is still a movie of many charms. The
world building is rich (wish they had spent even more time exploring
those areas, actually), the animation is superb, and the script is
chock-a-city-block full of droll visual and verbal gags.
