We attended an advanced screening of this film. All opinions are our own.

“Kubo and the Two Strings is an epic action-adventure from acclaimed animation studio LAIKA. Clever, kindhearted Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson of Game of Thrones) ekes out a humble living, telling stories to the people of his seaside town including Hosato (George Takei), Akihiro (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) and Kameyo (Academy Award nominee Brenda Vaccaro). But his relatively quiet existence is shattered when he accidentally summons a spirit from his past which storms down from the heavens to enforce an age-old vendetta. Now on the run, Kubo joins forces with Monkey (Academy Award winner Charlize Theron) and Beetle (Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey), and sets out on a thrilling quest to save his family and solve the mystery of his fallen father, the greatest samurai warrior the world has ever known. With the help of his shamisen – a magical musical instrument – Kubo must battle gods and monsters, including the vengeful Moon King (Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes) and the evil twin Sisters (Academy Award nominee Rooney Mara) to unlock the secret of his legacy, reunite his family and fulfill his heroic destiny.”- ©Focus Features

I love stop motion animation, especially the ones that LAIKA have done in the past. I have been pretty excited to see KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS. I loved this movie.

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS visually was one of the best animated movies I have seen in a while. This movie is beautiful to watch. It truly looked like a work of art. It amazes me what the filmmakers could achieve with the stop motion animation. There is so much detail and design in the backgrounds and in the characters. A theme of this movie is origami folding. This made many of the moments of the film look incredible and pretty cool especially in the 3D format.

The voice cast in this film was pretty impressive. Art Parkinson was fantastic in voicing the title role of Kubo. There was so much emotion and art in his performance. I also enjoyed Matthew McConaughey performance as Beetle.

I loved the music in this movie composed by Dario Marianelli. It definitely added a lot of emotion to the film. The music was beautiful.

The story of KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS was incredibly original. It was a very exciting and touching tale. There were definitely some scary and dark moments in the story. I think that this movie, even with its PG rating will be a little too intense and scary for some children.

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS is definitely one of the best animated movies that has come out this year. I loved it!

Another of our writers, Briann, saw this film with her daughter and here are her thoughts:

“Charlotte my 4 year old and I were able to go see Kubo and the 2 strings and we loved it! I wasn’t sure going in if Charlotte would be entertained or not, sometimes movies are hit or miss. BUT she couldn’t wait to come home and tell her Dad and Leah all about it. I really loved that Kubo was a strong boy who helped take care of his mother, he always listened and was such a sweet character. Charlotte loved the funny monkey who really became a great friend and protector for Kubo. I will say that the sisters in the movie were pretty creepy and Charlotte was a bit scared but we still loved the movie overall! It’s a great movie for the whole family, unless your children get scared then I would wait till they are a bit older.”-Briann