Coco Review

First off, I just want to say that the Frozen “short” before the movie was way too long and kind of generic/direct to DVD quality. Just putting that out there.

Anyway, Coco is the latest Pixar film and follows a young boy who wants to become a musician, but is forbidden to do so because of a tragedy in his family’s history that scarred their love for music. In turn, Miguel learns more about the secrets of his family’s past after getting accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead during a celebration on the Day of the Dead.

As usual with Pixar films, the visuals are insanely detailed and breathtaking to watch. The Land of the Dead, especially, had a really creative look and feel to it. I could totally see Disney planning some sort of Coco inspired section in their theme parks if this becomes successful enough. Judging by the box office, it’s looking like it is. The Mexican theme was what really brought the atmosphere together though.

The music, for one, was actually really good. This isn’t like a typical Disney animation where there’s one catchy song people will remember, however, because Pixar doesn’t really do the whole musical thing with their movies. In Coco, the music is more situational in that the whole plot doesn’t stop for one character to sing a song to introduce themselves or something, which was a refreshing change of pace for an animation like this.

The story is kind of a double edged sword because the film has a rocky start. I wasn’t really invested in the narrative at first because there wasn’t really much to chew on. It carries on like other animations I’ve seen with the main character learning about the crazy world he’s been dropped into and meeting funny side characters along the way (that sorta thing). However, there’s a point in the movie where that all changed and the story suddenly got deeper than I thought it would. The characters also developed in ways I didn’t expect, which only made them more interesting to learn about.

That’s probably the best thing about Coco. The amount of history told throughout it made the world feel more real, as if the characters actually existed outside the boundaries of the film’s runtime. That’s good world building right there. As with Pixar’s films, it builds up to a pretty emotional ending, which was amazing, ‘nuff said.

I wouldn’t say this is one of the best Pixar movies. It definitely beats out most of the sequels like Cars 3, Finding Dory, and maybe Monsters U for me though. I would say this is probably the best one since Inside Out (because that was actually a masterpiece). But putting the Pixar rankings aside, Coco is a damn good movie that shouldn’t be overlooked.

The Verdict: 8.5