Coco (2017)

  I can't believe I forgot to review Coco!  I watched this weeks ago with Bethany and Tyler and never wrote a review.

Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) is a young boy with a dream to be a great singer like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt).  The only problem is that Miguel's entire family hates musicians ever since his great-great-grandfather abandoned his wife and child to pursue his dreams of stardom.  Miguel is desperate and on the Day of the Dead, he crosses over to the underworld in order to prove his talent by meeting de la Cruz.  Unfortunately, the star is just as popular in death as in life, so Miguel enlists Hector (Gael García Bernal), a ragtag skeleton, to help him get an audience.

This was Pixar's first attempt at a musical and it's not a bad one.  It doesn't reach Disney levels of musical greatness but it's all right.  It won an Oscar for Best Original Song in "Remember Me," a weepy ballad that's played too often in the film, so clearly some people liked it.

The story is easily predictable if you've ever seen a Disney film.  Let's face it, though, you're not really watching it for the story.  It's Pixar so the visuals are stunning.  Especially that marigold bridge.    And it does find some real emotion in the smaller moments, basically the stuff that has nothing to do with Miguel.

This isn't my favorite Pixar by a long shot.  Honestly, I thought The Book of Life had a better story.