Movie Review: Coco

Movie Review: Coco                                                                                                                          11-22-17

In 2015, Pixar released two feature films: The first was Inside Out. The film received critical acclaim, earned over 800 million dollars worldwide, and rightfully won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Pixar's other feature that year, however, The Good Dinosaur, was a box-office bomb. It had to compete against Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and got weaker reviews. In fact, it reminds me of this scene from Clarence.

Fast-forward to 2017: Once again, Pixar released two films in the same year. The first was Cars 3, which got lukewarm reviews. The second was Coco, which I am reviewing today. Coco sparked some controversy because there has already been a CGI movie about Mexico's day of the dead: 2014's The Book of Life. In fact, some fans even went as far as calling Coco a 'Book of Life' knockoff. However, a few months ago on Twitter, Book of Life filmmakers Guillermo Del Toro and Jorge Gutiérrez stated that Lee Unkrich (who directed Coco) was a talented filmmaker, and that they were excited to see Coco.

Right now, Coco is receiving excellent reviews, with a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But does this film rank among Pixar greats like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Up? Let's find out.

Coco is about a young boy named Miguel, who dreams of being a guitarist like his great-grandfather La Cruz. However, the rest of his family hates music, and they believe La Cruz left a curse upon the family. Against their wishes, Miguel grabs La Cruz's guitar from his mausoleum, but he ends up in the Land of the Remembered: On the special holiday Dia de los Muertos, to boot! Now Miguel has to find a way back to the Land of the Living before sunrise, or else he will remain in the Land of the Remembered forever and become a skeleton.

Congratulations, Pixar! You saved us again during a rough year for animated movies! Coco has gorgeous animation, an original, emotional, and thick story, a very Latin American-inspired score from Michael Giacchino, and a likable protagonist. You can tell that Lee Unkrich's crew put lots of detail into creating both worlds.

While some of the extra characters, like Miguel's family in both realms, may not be as memorable as say, the tank gang from Finding Nemo, there is one thing that surprised me: A surprise villain. I know that fans have been complaining that four of the past animated Disney movies (Wreck-it Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, and Zootopia) all had surprise villains, but Pixar rarely does surprise villains. In fact, the only other Pixar movies I can think of that had surprise villains are Toy Story 2 and Up.

In conclusion, Coco is a worthy edition to Pixar's library of films, and if it gets snubbed for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, I will get mad!

Rating: Four stars out of five

By the way, make sure you see Coco in theaters before the end of the year to see the new Frozen short film Olaf's Frozen Adventure!