The wife and I caught this last night. I didn’t know a thing about it going in, except it had to do with the Day of the Dead. All I know about the Day of the Dead came from freshman Spanish class, Grim Fandango, and a fifth season episode of Babylon 5.
I think going in blind is probably the best way to see this. I had no idea what to expect, and was pleased that for every character development or plot twist I could see coming, there were three that blindsided me.
If you have to know something about it, I’d compare it to a Mexican Kubo and the Two Strings. Both involved a bard PC as they struggled with the binding (and sometimes strangling) bonds of family.
We laughed, we wept, we will probably see it again.
We saw this movie last weekend and I went in blind as well. I came out with tears streaming down my eyes. Then I found out that it has 97 in Rotten Tomatoes… what a great show. Highly recommended.
This is a tough one to answer. The movie is rarely scary, but it can be a little ghoulish. A nearly five year old girl might suddenly be confronted with questions about mortality, and what happens after people die, and about loved ones that die. If the girl is a budding Wednesday Addams, no problem. If the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland drives her into a catatonic state, avoid. For now.
My four year old boy freakin’ loved this movie. So maybe?
I don’t think it’s the themes of death that are really the problem. For a little kid it deals with some complex emotional situations (much like Inside Out), and not all kids would either understand what’s going or or be able to deal with the emotional weight of it.
I enjoyed the first 20 minutes or so, but as soon as the afterlife was revealed to be a giant capitilistic megalopolitan nightmare, I got lost. Mexico’s heaven is Brazil’s hell?
Then the movie lost inspiration and went through motions.
I think I really dislike it because the first minutes made me quite enthusiastic about it. Such a wonderful atmosphere.
Also I hadn’t watched a 3D animated movie since Wall-E, and I got a bit distraught by the uncanny valley: the kid’s exaggerated expression really looked like what a bad-acting kid’s expression (or a youtuber’s) may look like, and I grew very annoyed with them.
Whelp I finally saw this. I kind of thought this would be a hard click for me, like I knew watching the trailers, seeing the characters and the subject matter that this one might not connect with me that easily, and it didn’t. Very sad story, beautiful animation, I mean incredibly colorful, and very sad story, some nice twists too. i’d recommend it to anyone, but I suspect they’ll get more emotionally invested than I did. I see no real fault with the movie, just hat if you don’t get emotionally invested like it tries, and tries very hard to get you there, then it doesn’t work out so well.
