Ever since I was a little girl dressed up in princess costumes, I have had a love for Disney, and movies have been no exception, but I have always struggled to see Pixar and Disney as one in the same, no matter how many characters I see in the parks. But after watching Pixar’s latest movie Coco, I have found myself seeing the production companies as one in the same, and I guess now I am jumping on the Pixar train. Or should I say the Pixar Lamp?

Coco, Pixar’s newest animated adventure comedy came out on November 22 and is rated PG. IMDB rated Coco a almost perfect 9/10 and I agree. The movie was directed by Lee Unkrich, a seasoned Pixar pro, along with Adrian Molina, who has animated with the company since 2007. The movie sees the relationship between little Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) and his family members, dead and living (Gael Garcia Bernal, Jaime Camil, etc.). The movie runs one hour and forty nine minutes long with a 20 minute long Frozen special directly before it titled Olaf’s Frozen Adventure.

The basic plot and theme of Coco revolves around family, but its location in Mexico uses the afterlife to tell the story. The movie takes place during Dia de los Muertos and Miguel is helping his family prepare, but all he wants to do is play music for his ancestors and for the town and his family has forbidden this practice. Miguel is looking for an instrument to play for the town when he stumbles into the land of the dead. Miguel has to find his estranged ancestor so he can go back to the land of the living sending him on an epic quest before the sunrises the next morning.

The use of color and music without the rainbows and random breaking into song is the best part of the movie. Both the land of the living and of the dead are exuberant expressions of Mexican culture, and the singing that happened in both Spanish and English, without any subtitles, showed the progressive spirit of the movie industry. The movie is also a break from cheesy romances because the age of Miguel and location of most of the movie prevents that, bringing the movie’s focus back even closer to the theme of family. The animation took the Pixar company over five years to complete, and it shows. There are so many reasons to see Coco, its music and characters, its small hints for the major Pixar fans, like the Pizza Planet Truck, and its Mexican cultural insight. Because of this, I give Coco an almost perfect 9.5/10.