The Boy and the Beast - Movie Review

The Boy and the Beast is directed by Mamoru Hosoda, who's previously brought us the Digimon movie, as well as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, Wolf Children, and now The Boy and the Beast. This guy is quickly becoming my favorite director working in animation, and now that Hayao Miyazaki has retired, I actually think he is my favorite director working in animation. And just to let you know up front, I'm going to be telling you guys at the end of this video about something I'm doing with Loot Crate right now. I thank them very much for sponsoring this video. I'll talk to you guys about that afterwards. A young boy named Ren has run away from his family after a tragic accident, and when he stumbles across a strange alleyway in the middle of the city, he discovers a portal that leads to the Beast World, in which everyone who inhabits this area is some sort of animal, and they can all walk and talk, and they have lives. And this is where he runs into this large bear-like man who's training for something called Juten Gai. It's this tournament where you can become a lord if you win, and then you earn the right to reincarnate into whatever you want to be. But the movie's really about this boy and this beast training with one another. The Beast is supposed to be the master and the young boy the apprentice, but in reality, it becomes kind of blurred because they both help each other in life. This was a gorgeous, phenomenal movie. I love this movie. I like this film so much that after seeing it at one of the first showings in the afternoon by myself, I told my wife how much I loved it, and we went back and saw it again the exact same day, and it didn't drag at all. I saw it twice in the same day. This is a marvelous animation. As far as I'm concerned, this is the best weekend I've ever experienced in my entire life for animation films. With Zootopia and now this, both in the same weekend, this is amazing. Not only is the animation itself so beautiful, but there are so many themes woven throughout this movie about darkness, friendship, and parenthood, and there are also so many small hidden moments that I didn't notice the first time I saw it that become important as the film plays on, and I was so happy that I went and saw it a second time because I actually ended up liking it more the second time. The first time I saw it, I was wondering what this film was going to be for like the first 20 to 30 minutes. It didn't show itself for a while, if you know what I mean. It's a film that really sneaks up on you. The emotions behind this movie are very well hidden, and once the movie really lets you know what it's actually going to be about and the themes that are present throughout the film, I was blown away. This movie floored me. The only issue I have with it is that sometimes it gets exposition heavy. This is a problem with anime. A lot of times anime just, they're like, hey, just in case you didn't know, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, here's a bunch of stuff that you need to know. It happens, and with this film, there's a lot of it, and sometimes you need to know certain things because it's important to understand the characters, but I think they could have chosen slightly more clever ways of letting us know this information. This is an emotionally touching film with spectacular action set pieces, very, very good animation, and I wish to the bottom of my heart that more films like this were made in America. Mature animations with deep emotional themes that can actually impact you. Don't miss this movie if it's playing in a theater near you. I highly recommend it. Go seek it out. I'm gonna give The Boy and the Beast an A. So as I said, Loot Crate is doing something very cool this March. That is the Versus Crate, and a lot of things inside this amazing geek awesomeness box that can be sent to you is Batman V Superman in March. It's gonna have stuff for Alien Vs. Predator as well as Daredevil Vs. Punisher, and if you sign up at lootcrate.com slash chrisstuckman before March 19th, you can get the Versus Crate. Definitely check that out. The link is in the description below if you want to click on it. Thank you so much, guys, as always, for watching. Please don't miss out on The Boy and the Beast. It is definitely an animation worth your time. I can't wait to see it again, and I saw it twice in one day, which I really don't ever do. Thank you so much, as always, for watching. Stay tuned on Sunday. Superman 64 Retro Rewind. Ah, boy, it's gonna be fun. I can't wait to share that with you guys. Thank you, as always, for watching. You guys are the best, and if you like this, you can click right here and get Stuckmanized.