Trailer
Cast
Anthony Gonzalez Miguel (voice)
Gael García Bernal Héctor (voice)
Benjamin Bratt Ernesto de la Cruz (voice)
Plot
A few generations back, a young married man left with a guitar on his back to live his dream of being a musician. His young wife and daughter never saw him again. She swore that music was the cause of their hardship and therefore banned music from the family from then onwards.
Nowadays, there is a young man named Miguel who is very musically inclined and loves his idol Ernesto de la Cruz, whom also happened to come from the same area near Miguel's home. When his dog Dante (a stray that has taken a liking to him) accidentally knocks the family's Dia de los Muertos ofrenda [the place you set your deceased family/friends' photos to remember them during the Dia de los Muertos celebrations], a framed photograph falls to the floor. It is of his ancestor Mama Imelda, her daughter Coco, and her husband (whose face has been ripped out of the picture since he was the one that left the family to become a musician). Miguel finds that the picture is folded; on the other part of the photo, he finds a guitar which he recognizes as Ernesto de la Cruz's guitar. Could de la Cruz be his great great grandfather?
His family gets mad at him for trying to take a guitar to the plaza for a musician battle and his grandmother destroys his guitar. To participate in the contest, he needs a guitar so he decides, since de la Cruz is probably his great great grandfather, to borrow the guitar from the cemetery. When he does, however, he is transported to the world of the dead. How can he get back? Will his family ever accept his love for music? Can his family forgive his great great grandfather for leaving and never returning?
Rating Criteria
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.
5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.
4.5/5 - This is a wonderful movie to watch, especially if you understand the tradition around the Dia de los Muertos celebrations. The only reason I knock the rating down on this movie is the fact that *SPOILERS* Ernesto de la Cruz was NOT his great great grandfather. Actually, the skeleton that Miguel meets in the world of the dead (Hector) is really his ancestor and de la Cruz murdered him so that he could take ALL the credit for the songs that Hector wrote. de la Cruz also tried to kill Miguel in the world of the dead, which was really not acceptable for a "children's movie". Luckily the deceased family came to the rescue, which really made me cry, and Miguel was able to return to the world of the living. Hector was remembered, restored to the family, and received his recognition of the creation of his songs (thanks to Gramma Coco's letters that contained all of the original documentation of the songs). All is well that ends well, though we never hear what happened to de la Cruz in the world of the dead.
If you are going to watch this with children, please understand and maybe teach them what the Dia de los Muertos is about. Otherwise, it is just a story about being in the afterlife, which is not true for the Hispanic/Latino/Spanish culture.
Highly recommended, even for children!
Anyways, that's my review. Thanks for reading! There are more to come so keep an eye out for them.
~ Gracie Mae DeLunac
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"Everything Wrong with Coco in 14 Minutes or Less" by CinemaSins:
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