Disney’s Coco | Movie Review
Good afternoon ladies and gents of the X-Army, we hope your time spent with family this weekend has been a blessing. Speaking of blessing, today we have the privilege of bringing to you our Disney’s Coco review. Please sit back and enjoy as we share what we took away from the latest Disney and Pixar film. So without further ado, let’s get to it.
PLOT |
Miguel is a young boy who dreams of becoming an accomplished musician similar to his favorite artiste Ernesto de la Cruz. Unfortunately his family has had a generational ban on music due to his great-great grandfather abandoning his family year prior. Desperate to achieve his dreams, Miguel ends up casting a curse upon himself and ending up in the land of the dead. There he meets a charismatic man named Hector who helps him on his journey in meeting de la Cruz. Along the way young Miguel learns the truth about his family and the importance of chasing your dreams.
CAST |
For this section we normally input the cast that did the voices or acted, but I want to make special mention to the animators at Pixar who did a fantastic job with the design and scale of the film. The levels and effort these people have placed in their movies over the years have been astounding. Great work to the Pixar team to summarize that.
We continue, young actor Anthony Gonzalez voices the musically gifted Miguel. He is determined to become a musician like his idol and must go against his family’s ideology on music to achieve it. Gael Garcia Bernal voices the charismatic Hector in the film. He is a soul who has no one but his daughter who remembers him. His goal is to cross into the living world to see her before he is forgotten. Benjamin Bratt voices the legend himself Ernesto de la Cruz, a world-class musician. Spoiler alert…he is thought to be the Miguel’s ancestor, but he holds a more dark background than a simple relative. He is the one who murdered Hector.
SET-PIECES |
The first set-piece kicks off when we are introduced to Miguel and learn of his family’s dynamic. We learn of his great-great grandfather abandoning his family to pursue his music dreams and never returning. This action made the family itself bitter towards music itself and having it banned in all shapes within the household. Miguel finds himself on the outside looking in, but routinely sneaks off to his personal hideaway to practice his guitar with videos of de la Cruz. The second set-piece takes place when Miguel learns of a local talent show in his community and wants to join, but his grandmother finds him and forbids him from playing in the contest. She informs him that it’s the night the dead come back and he needs to be with his family. Subsequently she destroys his guitar and Miguel runs away.
The third set-piece sees Miguel in the marketplace where the contest will be held but has no guitar. He learns that de la Cruz could be his relative and goes to his grave site hoping to borrow his famous guitar. As a consequence to this he is transported to the spirit world where he meets his deceased relatives. Because he took his great great-grandmother’s picture to find de la Cruz she cannot cross over the bridge, but his relatives take Miguel to find he in hopes she can send him back to place the picture on the monument. She mentions her blessings in-order to send him home, but also forbids him from ever playing music again. He decides to run away and find de la Cruz in hopes of him sending him back.
The fourth set-piece sees Miguel meeting Hector and the two decide to help each other out. Hector will take Miguel to de la Cruz and Miguel must put his picture up in his daughter’s monument. They learn of a contest where the winner will personally play for de la Cruz and decides to enter. It being Miguel’s first live performance, Hector guides him every step of the way to put on a fantastic show. Miguel’s family, who has been searching for him since he ran off, locates him at the contest. Miguel runs off and goes directly to de la Cruz’s mansion. The fifth set-piece sees Miguel coming face to face with de la Cruz as he share his story, which sees de la Cruz willing to help him go home. Hector comes in to confront de la Cruz about stealing his songs and with some hard thinking, Hector learns the de la Cruz murdered him. Pretty dark stuff for a Disney movie huh?
The sixth set-piece sees Miguel learning that Hector is really his great great-grandfather and plans a way to expose de la Cruz for the scum that he is. Hector enlists the help of the wife he walked out on and together the family go off to the concert. Because de la Cruz also has the picture of Hector needed for him to be remembered, the family plan a covert operation of sneaking in. This goes south however and end up chasing de la Cruz onto the center stage. Hector and his wife reconnect through her finally accepting music fully and they retrieve the photo from de la Cruz. How many times have I typed de la Cruz.
The final set-piece sees de la Cruz attempting to murder Miguel by throwing him off the top of the concert tower. The family broadcasts him revealing the truth about the songs he stole and how much of a fraud he is while throwing Miguel over the tower. His gran’s spirit animal saves him, but he loses the picture of Hector. He is sent back home with the pretence to just follow his dreams and rushes to his great-grandmother Coco. He sees that the only way for her to remember Hector is to sing the song “Remember Me”, which ultimately keeps the spirit of Hector alive in the after life. Miguel now has the blessing to pursue music and the family’s bong becomes stronger than ever.
CONCLUSION & RATING |
This movie legit brought one tear to my eye for the moments with the great-grandmother and Miguel. My grandmother sometimes forgets who I am and I could relate to the notion of being forgotten by someone. The relationship within the family displayed in the movie itself was a blessing to see. Learning of this Mexican tradition and respecting another’s culture was really educational for me in this family film. The sad part was spending 30 minutes before the movie to see a preview of Frozen special. I am no Frozen fan, haven’t even seen it, so I could have done without it. But this movie is a solid 5 out of 5. Like I mentioned earlier the animation was just amazing and the songs here are catchy. Families, or if you are flying solo, will enjoy this guaranteed.
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