Pixar is a company of very little wrongs. I don’t know of a single studio that has consistently made such great films. The Toy Story trilogy is an easy, and appropriate example – but we also have Finding Nemo and Dory, Monsters Inc., Wall-E, The Incredibles and, my personal favourite, Inside Out. Yes, every now and then then they give us a film like the Cars trilogy and The Good Dinosaur, but for every bad Pixar project there will always be two great ones. So, when I see a film that was poorly advertised – seriously, what an awful teaser this film had – and have no idea what the plot is, what the words Pixar come up, I’m in!

Coco is set in the Mexican Day of the Dead – El Día de los Muertos – which is definitely a unique setting. The story follows a boy whose family, thanks to an old relative of theirs walking out of their lives to pursue his musician dream, has band music from their lives. But he doesn’t want to be restrained by the old tradition, as the pull of music is too much for him to ignore. Much to the dismay of his family. And this had me worried. But thankfully it all picks up once the boy finds himself in the land of the dead. Slowly dying himself the longer he stays there, the kid must receive the blessing from a family member to go home and live. His great great grandmother will only give him her blessing if he gives up his music dream, so he goes to find his great great grandfather. The musician who left his family.

Before he goes into the land of the dead, I was very worried that this was going to be another Brave. When the film hides most of what it is in its advertisement, only to be very generic in story and characters. It felt like Footloose, as well as a few other films that follow this “music is bad” storyline. Once he enters the land of the dead, while it’s not unpredictable, it is very well done. It’s a familiar story told in a different way. It also gets more visually interesting and delivers the films more interesting characters.

The world of the dead is amazing. I have never seen an afterlife so colourful, imaginative and yet completely believable. Whatever your belief on such things is, there is not denying that this feels like a nice afterlife for us. It incorporates the Mexican beliefs and our contemporary world perfectly. I did not expect to see such amazing people and creatures in this film. Whether they are a richly designed skeleton, with the Day of the Dead patterning’s on them, or a luminescent green, flying jaguar monster, everyone in this film is amazing to look at.

The characters are pretty excellent too. They all have fairly simple motives and don’t necessarily change that much over the course of the film. But they are relatable, likeable and are so full of energy and charm that you can’t help but love them. My favourite character is easily this con-artist skeleton who wants to help the kid find his relative, just so that the kid will put his photo on an alter so he can come to the land of the living. Everything about these characters, from the voice acting to the designs, to the animation are as perfect as they need to be.

It’s beautifully animated, but I don’t think I’ll give Pixar points for that anymore. You know the drill; the sky’s blue, water’s wet, Pixar films are gorgeously animated. But what Pixar have also managed time and time again, and what drives this film, is emotional impact. There are so many moments in Coco that are sold by how they get to you. There are numerous moments that will make you shed at least one tear in this. Others will keep a smile on your face. An example comes at the beginning.

The boy is talking to his great grandma, Coco, about the simple things, like what he saw today or what his favourite wrester was doing. He knows that she doesn’t really understand him, but she is always happy hearing him talk – her energy in listening to him talk passionately builds on his passionate energy and they both love it. It reminds me of when I used to do the same with my grandad – talking about dinosaurs or animals and we would both just enjoy listening and talking because we both loved how passionate the conversations were, even though I knew that he didn’t really understand most of it. That’s what this film does, it hits you on a very relatable level, better than most in recent memory.

It’s not without its shortcomings. The opening did lower my expectations. And yes, what you think is going to happen will happen. You might not be prepared for certain twists, or even how dark Coco gets towards the end, but on the whole, the story isn’t entirely unheard of. I also found some of the living characters a little too cut and dry. You have the over protective grandmother who upholds the traditions. There’s the father who doesn’t really listen. The sassy sister and the older brother who thinks he’s wiser than he is are here too. But, to be fair they’re not where the focus is.

After a rocky start I had a blast with Coco. It’s one of Pixar’s better film of recent years – I prefer it to the likes of The Good Dinosaur, Brave, Cars 3 and Up. I just loved it and would recommend it to anyone. It’s fun for whatever your tastes are and whatever your age is. My screening was full of adults and only a handful of kids, so you don’t need to worry about this being a kid’s film. You’ll most likely cry and you’ll certainly laugh. But mostly, you’ll feel happy.

By Yahia EL-Tanani.

Are you one of those people that enjoy trying to solve riddles and piece together puzzles? Me too! That’s why you might just love uncovering the mysteries and messages in this layered film. Haneke teaches us more about human complexity and hence our own humanity in the powerful Hidden (caché). When Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and Anne Laurent (Juliette Binoche) a typical, middle-class married couple begin to receive shady cassette tapes suggesting they are being followed; we the audience follow their journey on investigating who is behind all this and of course the motive. Haneke progressively demands that we deduce the human truths from this agonizing mystery drama.

All over, I feel that this film is a positive experience. It’s rich, honest and very gripping. It’s not a juvenile Hollywood blockbuster that overindulges the audience purely for entertainment. Rather, the film is a more mature piece that respects the audience as intellectual beings who can come to their own conclusions. Haneke employs this masterfully here and continually provides the audience with just the right amount of information to keep them thinking. It is the mark of truly sophisticated filmmaking that Haneke is patient enough to trust the audience, he knows slow and steady wins the race.

The main character Georges appears to be a normal hard-working family man. However, like most people we meet for the first time in life, we only know what we see. It takes something significant similar to what happens in the film for us to gain insights into the enigmatic and deep below-the-surface parts of Georges (no doubt a reflection of our own humanity). All the other characters almost encircle Georges keeping all eyes on him. They all have depth coupled with their own ambiguities that they protect even from their loved ones. The audience does not know everything about any of the characters, mirroring our relationships with one another in society. All we know about the characters is what we see and the socio-political subtext they live in. Through the characters Haneke silently exposes society.

What’s more, something Haneke does so well is making the characters undeniably real and ultimately a consideration of who we are as human beings in today’s society. The film does not use extra buttery lines of dialogue that are so often used in modern film. Haneke does the intangibles, the in-betweens, the type of dialogue that mirrors that critical real-life experience. The dialogue is the fundamental story telling vehicle in this film. Through the interactions and conversation of one character with the next we begin to understand more about the plot and the characters themselves. Haneke certainly holds onto uncertainty and never gives enough away. But this keeps the audience thinking, engaged and coming to our own conclusions. The majority of the dialogue between the characters are basic questions and answers showing that they are just as uncertain as us. This creates a mutual relationship between the characters and the audience.

This mutualism is further supported by the camera movement. There is no fancy cinematography or Hollywood-esque colour grading. The cinematography bleeds authenticity and life. The camera movement follows the characters in a basic manner staying still and moving left or right, no tilts or twists. This along with some bold drawn out static shots makes us read the film like a visual book. We only see what the characters see. Consequently, this marries our emotions with those of the characters. When the characters are stressed, we are stressed. When they feel, we the audience simultaneously feel.

On the other hand, I can’t help but feel there is a deprivation of music in the film. Nevertheless, Haneke may have wanted this in order to render a sincerely surreal experience, which makes the scarcity understandable. This does however cripple me with the “what if”. Had Haneke been more daring with his music choice could it have actively provided more emotional charge and given another dimension of perplexity to the story?

In general, this film is exquisitely well-paced and explores the themes of denial, guilt and forgiveness by exploiting the purely human quality of fearing the unknown. It wouldn’t be a Hidden review without mentioning that following along this nerve-racking plot is made rewarding by the teasing final shot. Well worth a watch if you’re looking for a film to stimulate you in the most cerebral, genuine fashion.

When a technologically advanced civilisation threaten to enslave or banish Dug and his band of prehistoric buddies, the plucky young caveman challenges their enemy to a game of football to save his home and his friends.

We are lucky enough to live in a world in which Aardman exists. From Chicken Run to Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep to Creature Comforts, we’ve had decades of wonderful characters and memorable stories realised in gorgeous stop-motion animation with a quirky British twang. Sure, there’s been the occasional clunker but the outstanding works always outshine the weaker offerings.

Sadly, Early Man is one of those weaker offerings.

The sports underdog movie is a genre littered with classics, while the football underdog movie… not so much. Escape to Victory, Bend it Like Beckham, Vinnie Jones’ Mean Machine and Air Bud: World Pup now have Early Man to share their middling reputation. A movie so “by the numbers” that it feels like Aardman on autopilot, which when you consider the time and effort that went into animating it, is a terrible shame.

While bemoaning a clichéd plot in a children’s movie might sound mean-spirited, there’s the underlying fact that there is a wealth of outstanding animated fayre from Aardman, Laika, Pixar, Studio Ghibli and beyond that take a simplistic theme and embellish it with cinematic wonderment. I adore Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! and Curse of the Were-Rabbit because of their vibrancy and frenetic rhythm. Early Man has none of that urgency. It is sluggishly paced, blandly written and wastes most of its voice talents.

Poor Timothy Spall, Richard Ayoade, Selina Griffiths, Johnny Vegas, Mark Williams, Gina Yashere and Simon Greenall barely get a look-in as the displaced tribe of early people. Eddie Redmayne does his best with the well-worn dialogue while Maisie Williams’ accent(s) are enough to make you wince. The only roles that are delivered with any kind of gusto are Tom Hiddleston as Lord Nooth (the big bad), offering up a delightfully pantomime’esque performance, the ever-excellent Miriam Margolyes as Queen Oofeefa and Rob Brydon as a message bird.

As is expected, the stop-motion, clay animation is gorgeous but that alone does not earn this film a free pass. Early Man is Aardman’s first own-goal since Flushed Away. I’m sure very young children may enjoy it but there’s just not enough there to engage the big kids.

Early Man opens this Friday.

Go watch Coco instead. I cannot recommend that film highly enough!