Kubo and the Two Strings

Passing along legends to the village peasants, as told to him by his slowly fading mother, of his noble samurai father and his demise at the hands of his malevolent, immortal grandfather (an incident which also resulted in the loss of his own eye), a young boy is whisked away to an icy netherworld where he is stalked by the old man’s presence once more and protected by a surly monkey and an absentminded beetle. The Overamericanized Kubo and the Two Strings goes down a Disneyfied path just when you think its veering toward a different, darker direction although the animation is sharp, the story resonant, and boasts some great action sequences. *** out of ****