Coco **** (2017, voices Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach) – Movie Review

Directors Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina’s 2017 Pixar movie is a genuine weird one, a total one-off oddity that you are kind of amazed they went ahead and made. A story about a boy who enters the Land of the Dead to find his ancestors could be dead on arrival. But not here. The risk pays off big time. Pixar has dared and won.

It deservedly won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Animated. Its unforgettable hit song song ‘Remember Me’ (by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez) was nominated for Best Original Song – Motion Picture (although it lost out to The Greatest Showman).

It also won the Oscars for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song (‘Remember Me’).

Anthony Gonzalez voices the 12-year-old, music-loving boy Miguel.

The truly original story is about a 12-year-old, music-loving boy Miguel (voice of Anthony Gonzalez), who battles his bossy mum Mamá Imelda (Alanna Ubach)’s ban on music and enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, singing legend Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt). He also finds a new pal, Héctor (Gael García Bernal), one of the huge skeleton crew he gets involved with, imperiling his life (well he is in the Land of the Dead, isn’t he?}.

Mmm, ‘I see dead people’, well that’s not very cheery, is it? But this movie turns out to be remarkably cheery, colourful, tuneful – and actually truly surprising.  Its strength is that it has a really good story to tell, and tells it with maximum confidence and imagination.

It’s a shame about the avalanche of clichés about family and all the treacly sentimentality at the end. They slightly bottle out finally. Did they get nervous that no one would buy their story? It looks like it. It goes all Disney on us in the last 15 minutes. But, otherwise, this really is an unforgettable journey to the Land of the Dead.

It is beautifully animated and characterfully voiced. I suppose it’s a kids’ movie, but when I saw it there wasn’t a kid in the cinema, only a nearly packed house of early twentysomethings, apparently enthralled and enrapt. It is a delight.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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