By Edward Baillargeon
2017 has been one of the most average years for animation in some time, especially compared to the amazing year we had last year. Yes, we have had some good movies this year like The Lego Batman Movie, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, The Lego Ninjago Movie, My Little Pony: The Movie, and Cars 3. But we had some films that ranged from average to disastrous like The Boss Baby, Smurfs: The Lost Village, The Star, The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, and *cough* *cough* The Emoji Movie. But now, Pixar Animation Studios and Lee Unkrich, the Academy Award winning director of Toy Story 3, bring their second animated feature of this year, after Cars 3, to the big screen with Coco.
The movie is about Miguel, a boy who dreams of being a musician like his idol Ernesto de la Cruz, despite his family’s generation-old ban on music. Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel and his dog Dante find themselves in the Land of the Dead where they meet a charming trickster named Hector and set off on a journey to unlock the story behind Miguel’s family history.
Coco is easily one of Pixar’s most creative and emotional films in recent years. The story is very interesting and fun with the amount of twists and turns the movie takes where we look into Miguel’s family history with a strong and heartfelt message about the importance of family which will be likely to make some audience members cry. And as to be expected with Pixar, the animation is of course, absolutely stunning. The amount of creativity can be easily displayed on the screen and really shows how much effort the talented artists at Pixar did their research of the Mexican culture. The studio has taken audiences to many worlds from many perspectives like toys, monsters, fish, superheroes, cars, robots, and inside the mind, but this could be one of their most visually stunning films yet. The characters are also really likable and have some nice charm thanks to fantastic performances from its all-Latino cast. And even though this movie isn’t a musical but one of the main themes of the movie is about music, the songs are also really fantastic which is not surprising coming from the songwriting duo behind Frozen, Avenue Q, and The Book of Mormon.
Also, before the movie would start, Walt Disney Animation Studios released a Frozen holiday special called Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, which is about Olaf the snowman going door to door around Arendelle to look for holiday traditions when Anna and Elsa don’t have a tradition. I’ll admit that it was an enjoyable special with some decent songs and laughs, but I didn’t think it made sense for Disney to release a 22 minute TV special in front of an 109 minute movie, and adding 10-15 minutes of pre-movie trailers make this an experience that is OVER 2 HOURS LONG, even though it’s a Pixar tradition to play a 5-7 minute short in front of their movies. Heck at my local theater, the staff put up a sign giving audiences a warning that Olaf’s Frozen Adventure cannot be removed from Coco. And because of the backlash, Disney decided to remove the special from any showings of the film starting December 8th. Overall, Coco is a must-watch for your entire family this holiday season. This would also be at #5 on my Pixar movie ranking list being just a little bit below WALL•E, The Incredibles, Up, and Inside Out. I’m going to give Coco a 10/10 with the Edward’s Seal of Approval and my highest recommendation.
