"Coco"- Disney animated film review

The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "Coco".

I'd seen the trailers for this film, so I had an idea of the general premise, but the trailers didn't interest me enough to see the film previously.

The mariachi version of "When You Wish Upon a Star" that plays over the castle image before the film - I loved it!  I know they don't generally like to mess with the icon of the image or the music, but when they do, they do such a great job.  My favorite was the imagery change they did for "Tron:  Legacy".

I loved the telling of the backstory through the images on the papel picado (paper decorations).  (No, I didn't know that's what they were called.  Yes, I looked it up.  Movies that are entertaining and informational, yay.)

Oh, so Coco is the grandmother.  Ok, didn't know that.  Miguel Rivera tells the story of his family.  Coco's dad was a musician who went off to pursue his dream, leaving his wife (Imelda) and young daughter behind.  Imelda is so infuriated that she banishes anything musical from her family, and she starts a shoe-making business, which then becomes the family business.  But Miguel has a secret - he loves music.  He's just not sure how to let his family know.  There's a singing contest the next day, and while Miguel is shining the shoes of a member of a mariachi band, he encourages Miguel to enter the contest.  Just then, Miguel is found by his family, and his Abuelita is furious and marches the family home.  On the way, she's annoyed with someone (something?  I can't remember) and throws one of her sandles at him/it.  And I'm thinking, so now you've only got one shoe.  And sure enough, she continues the walk home with one shoe and one bare foot.  In the next scene, I specifically looked at her feet, and she had two shoes on, so she must have put on another pair from home.

Miguel idolizes a local hero - Ernesto de la Cruz, a famous musician and actor who was tragically killed when a giant bell fell on him onstage.

It's Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), when families put up pictures of dead relatives and offerings of their favorite food and other things so that the relatives can come and have a pleasant visit.  On this fateful day, Miguel discovers that he's related to Ernesto - Ernesto is Coco's father!  Miguel is more determined than ever to participate in the singing contest, but when Abuelita hears about it, she's so infuriated that she smashes the guitar that Miguel has made himself.  Miguel can't join the contest if he doesn't have a guitar.  After futile attempts to borrow one, he gets an idea - there's a guitar in Ernesto's mausoleum, so he decides to borrow the guitar just for the contest.  Kid, stealing things from someone's mausoleum is not a good idea, even if you think of it as "borrowing", and even if it's family.  Miguel retrieves the hallowed guitar and gives it a strum, and the leaves are illuminated and flutter.  Miguel then hears people outside say that someone is inside and trying to steal things.  Miguel prepares himself for the confrontation ... when people literally walk right through him and don't know that he's there.

Apparently, the strum on the guitar has now made him invisible to the living but visible to the dead, and he can see them too.  Not sure who was more startled, him or them.  He sees all the people crossing the bridge to visit their loved ones in the land of the living, but there's a catch - you can only cross over if someone puts a picture up of you.  The person is scanned, and if there's a matching picture put up, they can go through.  If not, they're turned away.  It reminded me a little of the entrance turnstiles at Disneyland, where they scan your admission media to find out if you're allowed to enter that park on that day.

Miguel decides to track down his great, great grandfather Ernesto, and street dog Dante decides to follow him.  OK, I knew there was a dog in this movie, but I didn't know he was just a random stray.  And why is Dante allowed to cross over when he's not dead, and he wasn't there when Miguel strummed the guitar?  Is it like a Twilight Zone thing where dogs can sense evil, so they can go anywhere, and they provide protection and guidance for their masters?

Miguel meets Hector, who asks Miguel to put his picture up when he returns to the land of the living so that Hector can visit his girl.  Hector says that he knows Ernesto and can help him.  They eventually have a falling out, and Miguel sets out on his own with Dante.

I can't remember where they were, but random dude says that he's allergic to dogs.  Miguel points out that Dante has no hair.  Random dude:  "And I have no nose, and yet, here we are."  I busted out laughing at that line.

Imelda has a spirit animal named Pepita that's kind of like a ginormous mountain lion with even ginormouser wings.  He soars and plays fetch pretty well as he goes in search of Miguel, who has run away because Imelda insists that he promise not to be involved with music anymore, and none of the rest of the family is willing to go against her.  In order for Miguel to return to the land of the living, he must have a family member give their blessing before midnight.  (Are you not supposed to feed him after midnight also?)  Miguel refuses to accept Imelda's no-music restriction and decides to look for Ernesto instead, since he's sure Ernesto will give him his blessing with the music restriction

Some mariachi band somewhere is playing, and I'm thinking, how can they play brass when they have no lungs?

Miguel eventually finds Ernesto.  Ernesto's spirit animals looked like multi-colored gremlin to me.  Not Spike-gremlin, but Mogwai gremlin.  (Hmmm, gremlins, midnight deadlines.)  Miguel tells Ernesto that he's his great, great grandson, and Ernesto shows him off at various events.  Eventually, it's time for Miguel to return home, so Ernesto gives his blessing and ends it with "I hope you die very soon", which would normally seem like a terrible thing to say to someone, but in this case, it's very sweet because it means Ernesto wants to see Miguel again soon.  Awwww...

But before Miguel can return home, he's intercepted by Hector, and it turns out that Hector does indeed know Ernesto.  Hector and Ernesto used to perform together, and Hector is actually the one who wrote all of their songs, including what had become Ernesto's signature song, "Remember Me", while Ernesto has been taking credit for writing all the songs himself.  And Hector remembers what else happened.  He had decided that his family was more important to him, and he was going to give it up and return home.  Ernesto tried to talk him into staying, but to no avail.  And then he came up with an idea - a final toast with Hector.  Hector agreed, but he didn't know how final it was going to turn out to be, because Ernesto slipped a poison in Hector's drink, and after Hector died, Ernesto took all of his songs and music and went on to become super famous.  Miguel, who knows all of Ernesto's movies, is horrified when he reveals that that very same poisoning scenario was duplicated in one of Ernesto's films.

Ernesto orders his guards to remove Hector, which they do.  Miguel nervously waits, hoping Ernesto will still send him home, but Ernesto is worried about what Miguel just heard, and Ernesto will do anything to protect his reputation and his name, so he summons his guards to take care of Miguel as well.  Dude, your own great, great grandson?  Heartless.

Miguel is tossed down some giant cavernous hole, which it turns out is the same giant cavernous hole that Hector had been tossed into.  (Miguel lands in water, so I guess there's no warning about not getting him wet.) Hector laments that he's never going to see his girl, and it's only then that's it's clarified that he means his daughter.  He had hoped to see her again, if not when he could cross over, but when she eventually arrived at the land of the dead.  But, Coco's memories of him are fading (Coco is experiencing some effects of Alzheimer's), and she's the last to know him, and no one in the family was allowed to talk about him, and once no one remembers him anymore, he will even disappear from the world of the dead, and he will really never see Coco again.

At the mention of the name "Coco", Miguel is stunned.  HECTOR is Miguel's great, great grandfather, not Ernesto!  Hector talks about the song "Remember Me", and that he wrote the song for Coco, because he knew he was going to be away for a while and didn't want her to forget him.  He sang the song to her, and she'd sing it with him.  (In the footage when Coco is a little girl sitting on the edge of the bed listening to him with her little feet dangling and swinging - how cute!)

Miguel is eventually rescued by Imelda and Pepita, but she is decidely not happy to see Hector again after all these years.  She learns what actually happened to him, that he didn't just abandon his family, but while she's not ready to forgive him yet, she is willing to help him.  The picture of himself that Hector had originally given to Miguel to put up for him is now in the hands of Ernesto, and they need that picture back so that Miguel can take it back with him, with Miguel's deadline looming as well.

A whole bunch of stuff happens, and when the podium rises, it takes Imelda up into the spotlight on stage that was supposed to have taken Ernesto instead.  (As the circle she was standing on started to rise, I totally thought of "The Hunger Games", when Katniss is sent up into the arena.)  And then a miraculous thing happens.  Imelda starts to sing.  (Now that I think about it, I think she sang at a running-away Miguel earlier, but I don't remember why.)  It turns out that she used to be a singer but gave it all up as part of her banishment of music from her life and family after she thought Hector had deserted them.  Hector goes out with a guitar to join her, and then the band plays along too, and everyone is happy!  Until Ernesto takes the stage with Imelda, in an effort to retrieve Hector's picture that she now has.

A bunch of other stuff ensues that I don't remember, but as Ernesto is about to confirm to Miguel that he (Ernesto) did poison Hector and that he (Ernesto) did then steal his (Hector) songs and go on a diatribe about how he's willing to do anything to keep what he has, no matter what, someone turns on the microphones, so all of his secrets are out as the audience hears his confession.  And they are not in a forgiving mood.  Something happens, and Ernesto ends up getting a bell dropped on him again.

They weren't able to retrieve Hector's picture, and Hector is about to fade away, but Miguel's time is up.  He has to go back to the land of the living or be stuck in the land of the dead forever.  Imelda gives her blessing with no conditions, and after Miguel wakes up back in Ernesto's mausoleum, he races home.  The rest of his family tries to stop him, but he makes his way to his great grandmother Coco, and he tries to get her to remember Hector.  Coco is non-responsive to his pleas, so Miguel starts to play and sing "Remember Me" and reminds her that her dad used to play this for her.  And soon, Coco is smiling and singing with Miguel.  She then takes out something and gives it to Miguel - it's the piece of the picture that was ripped off that had Hector's face.  Miguel holds it up with the entire picture, and the family picture is complete.

And the next year, everyone is able to cross over from the land of the dead to the land of the living.  And Imelda and Hector are together again.  Even Dante and Pepita come back, and Pepita turns out to be a regular cat.  So they both have dual lives, regular animals in the land of the living and spirit animals in the land of the dead?

Overall, I enjoyed this movie.  I'm not sure what they could have done with the advertising that would have gotten me interested enough to see the movie in the first place, though.  I did like that they gavve you part of the story in the trailer, but that turns out to not be the real story.  Oh, and the husband actually figured out ahead of the reveal that Hector was the great, great grandfather, not Ernesto.  He said that when Ernesto gave Miguel his blessing, the leaf didn't glow like when other people did it, which it wouldn't have since they weren't really related.  I'll have to look for that next time.

So since Hector kept pretending to be Frida Kahlo, I was thinking she better show up at some point, and she did!  Yay!

Ernesto is a jerk.  Like seriously, he's an asshole.  But I like Benjamin Bratt, so conflicted feelings

I wasn't too keen on Abuelita either.  She was bossy and much too overbearing.  I was so mad at her when she broke Miguel's guitar.  She had no right!