MOVIE THOUGHTS - 'Kubo And The Two Strings'

Is the voice cast whitewashed? Yes. Is this symptomatic of systemic racism that pervades in most Hollywood casting, animated or otherwise? Definitely. Does this film represent a missed opportunity to give an ensemble cast of Asian actors non-token roles in an American production? No question. But Kubo And The Two Strings is the fourth stop-motion/CG/hand-drawn hybrid extravaganza from the Oregon-based powerhouse studio Laika, and though it falls just a hair short of the likes of Coraline and ParaNorman, it is absolutely worth the price of admission.

In ancient Japan, Kubo is a young samisen player living in hiding with his mother. She shields him from her sisters and father, moon spirits hellbent on blinding Kubo as a means of immortalizing him and converting him to their cold, emotionally-distant lifestyles. When Kubo's aunts track him down, it is a race against time to find his late father's enchanted samurai armor, the only protection he will have against his grandfather, the Moon King. On the way he meets Monkey, a talisman brought to life to protect Kubo, and Beetle, a cursed, insect-like warrior who aids Kubo in his encounters with beasts who guard pieces of the armor...

For better and worse, this is a melancholy tale of familial loss, and even by Laika's standards this a very understated adventure story. The first ten minutes of Kubo patiently set up Kubo's daily routine with his mother and keep the mood mellow. Screenwriter Chris Butler previously generated true empathy for his ostracized young protagonist in ParaNorman, and by the time Kubo is completely stranded and wonders if anyone he knows is even alive, you really do fear for his life.

Yet Butler and co-writer Marc Haimes make some critical missteps and unveil two twists that seriously undercut Kubo's feelings of loss up to those points. The second act feels oddly barren at times, and I wonder if the narrative would have benefited from adding a third ally to Kubo's team. Composer Dario Marianelli previously proved himself capable of fast-paced action on Laika's The Boxtrolls, but considering the variety of off-kilter musical talent brought to Coraline and ParaNorman, I wish the orchestral sound had been abandoned in favor of more squarely Eastern sensibilities.

All of this said, Kubo's joys are too many to count. Kubo can bring pieces of paper to life with his music, and in a film packed with creative fight sequences, the most beguiling of all is the story of his father's quest, visualized entirely with living origami. From start to finish you will pine to drink up the high-value colors, particularly during crowd shots where costume designer Deborah Cook's gorgeous kimonos are on display. Laika is known for finding resourceful ways to make its worlds as lived-in as possible: the 3D-printed faces in Kubo have traditional woodblock-printed textures, and props like swords are specially built to emulate motion blur.

First-time director Travis Knight has the blessed distinction of being both the CEO and a lead animator at Laika: he has the artists' best interests at heart, and has often stated that there will never be a Laika sequel/reboot/remake under his reign. Kubo And The Two Strings is the most arresting animated feature of the year, and by the time the fabulous 2D-animated credits roll, you will be grateful for having something as unique as this to take your kids to see.

MOVIE THOUGHTS - 'Phantom Boy'

If you are an American lover of obscure animation it is tempting to believe, in the face of routine, obnoxious CG animation, that independent or foreign features have a responsibility to be more aesthetically and emotionally sophisticated than the norm. While Phantom Boy is the former, it is not necessarily the latter, but it is a good reminder that all animation has the right to settle for less, so long as it strives to offer something new.

Co-directors Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli follow up their little 2010 caper A Cat In Paris with the story of Leo, a pre-teen boy battling cancer who discovers that his ailment allows him to detatch from his mortal bounds at will and fly over the urban canopy unseen. Pretty soon he befriends Alex, a hospitalized, down-on-his-luck cop who enlists Leo's help in remotely locating a criminal known as 'The Face' and bringing him to justice.

Over the past couple of months alone, Phantom Boy and The Secret Life Of Pets have offered a couple of my favorite cinematic incarnations of New York City, and for entirely opposite reasons. Where Pets gleefully exaggerated the height and quantity of Manhattan's skyscrapers, Phantom Boy celebrates the city's grunginess by casting harsh, noon-day sun and shadow upon sketchy, desaturated renderings of the cityscape. It is a more honest and contained depiction.

Felicioli continues to channel his Cubist influences with background work that often throws the laws of perspective to the four winds, and off-kilter, slightly unsettling character designs that should theoretically work in the crime genre's favor. But as with A Cat In Paris, we are saddled with an over-the-top (albeit uniquely disfigured) villain who undercuts any real threat, and a script that, while serviceable, shoehorns exposition in when the plot should already be well underway.

As is often the case, the small touches are the takeaways, from the brown-and-yellow color scheme to Serge Besset's beguiling main string theme (an upgrade from A Cat In Paris) to the way ghost-Leo gingerly wriggles his way back into his real body. It is by far the year's most worthwhile unambitious animated diversion.

MOVIE THOUGHTS - 'The Little Prince'

In the world of fiction, tone is the trickiest element to pin down. Rather than being a literal ingredient like casting, cinematography, or narrative structure, it is the sum of all of these; the x-factor that determines whether an audience will collectively roll its eyes or lean in further for the same story. Author and pilot Antoine de Saint Exupery wielded masterful command over the delicate tone of his 1943 children's story The Little Prince, which invites very particular adjectives over the course of the titular Prince's metaphorical encounters: understated, mystical, plaintive, melancholy, elusive...

As the trailers have promised, the new animated messterpiece The Little Prince, helmed by Kung Fu Panda co-director Mark Osborne, honors these qualities during breathtaking (albeit condensed) stop-motion depictions of chapters from the novella, but indulges in overstated and overblown emotions for an invented CGI frame story that actually makes up the majority of the film. This is NOT a straight adaptation of The Little Prince. For better and worse, it is instead a feature-length engagement with the original text's themes of growing up mindfully.

We are in a modern-day utopia of efficiency and colorlessness that would make the Little Prince scoff. After an unnamed Girl (Interstellar's Mackenzie Foy) flubs up the key question during her interview for acceptance into private school, her mother puts her on a summer long study plan that has been divvied up into blocks of time no longer than fifteen minutes each. That is until the wacky old coot next door (voiced sweetly by Jeff Bridges) introduces her to the childhood joys of The Little Prince story and instills in her a passion for whimsy and optimism, all highlighted with saccharine, out-of place string swells by Hans Zimmer and Richard Harvey.

This first half plays as if nervous studio executives called for a modern-day framing device to simplify already accessible ideas (Paramount dropped the film just days before its intended U.S. theatrical release). Sure enough, the two storylines rub against each other awkwardly. Stories rooted in metaphor demand fierce concentration from the get-go, so when the film shifts from stargazing on the old man's roof to the Prince's symbolic visits to neighboring planets, The Little Prince feels out of place in its own movie!

Then the second half comes along, where the Girl retreats into her imagination to discover whether it is better to mull over the fate of a loved one, or to put faith in their continued spirit. Everything works. Everything from the expansion of the utopian landscape (which cleverly recalls an image from the book of a baobab infestation) to the gaunt, Tim Burton-esque character designs (Lou Romano of Pixar fame proveded the CG production design) to even the rescue of an older Little Prince, all works because it is metaphorical and believably something a child would concoct in his or her mind. This entire section does its own thing and owns it.

Yet up until then I found myself pining for a cut of the film featuring just the stop-motion sequences. Production designer Alexander Juhasz adorns everything from hair to desert sand with conspicuous fabric surfaces, and hangs the stars rom strings, all designed to steer this world away from the literal. And yet the character designs are elegant translations of their literary counterparts, which I particularly appreciated when the Aviator, searching for purpose in his adventures, evolves from a paper cutout to a full-fledged model upon meeting the titular Prince.

Other inspired moments are small but valuable. Throwaway exchanges between the Girl and the old man are choice (at one point she scales a tree and remarks that she is afraid. "Why do you think I sent you?" is his reply). Even Hans Zimmer contributes some hypnotic solo string ostinatos and unnerving percussive elements. Perhaps the CG framing device, however bombastic in execution, will resonate with millennials facing intense professional and social pressure.

On Animation Studios from France completed the animation in Montreal. Mark Osborne fancifully pitched the film with a suitcase containing Prince paraphernalia nearly 400 times over several years. The dedication shows, and even while I believe Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are stands as a more faithful adaptation of the tone of The Little Prince than this film, it is gratifying that this ambitious project has found its way to American audiences.

DOCUMENTARY THOUGHTS - 'Life, Animated'

Generations of children can claim that Disney animation provided a formative influence on their worldviews, but Owen Suskind, the subject of the new documentary Life, Animated (part-life, part-animated), is one in a handful who can attest to its observable impact.

Owen, who heralds from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was diagnosed with regressive autism at the age of three, and consequently remained silent for years until his parents, Ron (Pulitzer-winning writer for the Wall Street Journal) and Cornelia Suskind, discovered his deep resonance with Disney features, specifically with supporting characters who tend to elude the spotlight. This non-linear film, based on Ron Suskind's biography, chronicles Owen's quest to navigate the ups and downs of growing up, all with the aid of Disney as his reference guide.

Emotional realism in any film, fictional or not, is challenging when Disney is involved. For a better part of the first half, which builds up Owen's entrance into a self-sufficient lifestyle, I found myself wishing for a less manipulative tone. The electronic score by Dylan Thomas and Todd Griffin felt saccharine, and the parallels between Owen's real-life drama and the Disney sequences he simultaneously revisits felt suspiciously on-point.

Then Owen settles into assisted living, and the tone of the film settles down as well. Owen's grievances over romantic heartbreak and job-hunting woes feel uncompromising, and we get further acquainted with Walter, Owen's loving but grounded brother whose mere mention of Disney porn excuses much of the film's gratuitous Disney propaganda. Director Roger Ross Williams knows Ron Suskind from years of working with him in broadcast news, so his presence in Owen's life during principal photography must have felt comfortable enough to forgive some obtrusive camerawork.

The aforementioned original animation in the film depicts Owen's emotional experiences. It germinates as sketchy, black-and-white pastel storyboards that represent his loneliness and uncertainty, but blossoms into fluid, full-color fantasy as he delves into his imagination and recruits Disney sidekicks to help vanquish 'Fuzzbutch', the embodiment of darkness in his life. The progression is obvious but nonetheless effective.

I attended a screening of the film with a moderated Q&A with Mr. and Mrs. Suskind, and they claimed that Owen felt the animation - provided by heads of the French animation and visual effects studio Mac Guff (Despicable Me) was almost how he envisioned his escapades. While the animators sought to be true to Owen's point-of-view, I wonder if the their work might have benefited from hewing closer to Owen's own crude, imperfect childhood renderings of the classic characters.

But the animation, and the film on the whole, respects Owen's individuality and does not try to celebrate or over-emphasize his continuing integration into society. Only after the screening did the Suskinds inform us that, along with working at a Cape Cod multiplex, Owen co-hosts a radio program and teaches kids how to draw. Owen's story is a worthwhile glimpse into what autism feels like from the inside out, and I recommend finding it before it leaves cinemas by the end of August!