Genre: Animation/ Adventure/ Family/ Comedy/ Fantasy
Runtime: 126 minutes
Year: 2017
Starring: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Renee Victor, Jaime Camil, Alfonso Arau, Herbert Siguenza, Gabriel Iglesias, Lombardo Boyar, Ana Ofelia Murguia, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Selene Luna, Edward James Olmos, Sofia Espinosa, Carla Medina
Description: Aspiring musician Miguel, confronted with his family’s ancestral ban on music, enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, a legendary singer.
Review: Leaving your childhood behind and with it your innocence, just a little bit different from the rest or the complex emotions of a teenager: you can't think of it like that or Pixar knows how to give it an original and especially emotional twist. The strength of the San Francisco-based animation studio is that they are able to turn the most complex subjects into a compelling adventure for the whole family and incorporate different layers.
One of the few certainties of life is death. A difficult task: an animated film about the end and the afterlife. In this mission by Lee Unkrich (“Toy Story 3”) and co-director Adrian Molina, it helps that not all cultures are equally gloomy about death.
In Mexico on Día de Muertos, they celebrate the return of the souls of the dead to earth. For outsiders a strange sensation, but for the Mexicans a part of their life and tradition.
The makers of Pixar's nineteenth feature film succeed in miraculously bridging cultural differences and sketching a universal story of twelve-year-old Miguel. He loves nothing more than making music, but has been banned by his family from producing a single note. Miguel's wheelchair-bound, ancient great-grandmother Coco can still remember the time when her mother lost all faith in love when Coco's father, a musician, left his family.
In the preperations to the Mexican holiday, Miguel visits the grave of the national music hero Ernesto de la Cruz, who was tragically crushed by a huge object during a famous performance and passed on. Miguel is firmly convinced that he is a descendant of the De la Cruz. As if by magic, the boy is sucked into the wondrous world of the dead together with dog Dante.
Pixar is known for its beautifully rounded stories where everything eventually falls into place. Especially in that area Coco is a bit disappointed. Because the bar of Pixar productions is so incredibly high and the sub-division of Disney by the finesse of the storylines head and shoulders above the competitors, the expectations are in advance sky-high. It's just a little less brilliant this time. There are several storylines you can go a long way in (Miguel gets a mission on his plate and comes into contact with dead but colorful characters and family members), but they are sloppy and in a hurry knotted together. Especially towards the end this colorful animation adventure gets a lot of trouble. For young viewers it will all be just a bit too fast and complicated.
Nevertheless, Pixar presents itself once again with an overwhelming visual palette in which you look your eyes out. Where death is a bleak depression in many animated films, in the vision of Unkrich and his people the necropolis where Miguel ends up is a large amusement park that is just as lively as the village where he usually finds himself among the living.
It is remarkable how Unkrich managed not to portray the Mexicans as a caricature. He may have turned on some local voices, including that of Gael García Bernal, but they don't turn on their possible accent boldly. Thank God we don't see siesta-loving lazybones with big sombreros and thick cigars.
Coco is a joy for the eye and a song of praise for family and the bond with the deceased souls. The cross-eyed dog Dante, whose tongue is constantly hanging out of his mouth and is not too bright, is reminiscent of the deranged chicken from “Moana”, but still forms an entertaining sidekick. The whole thing is also enlivened with catchy songs and a very talented young voice actor who has played the role of Miguel.
This may not be Pixar at its best, but it's still a great animated film.
Rating: 4 / 5
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