Thoughts re: Laika?

Kubo and the Two Strings comes out in a week, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Am I over it already? Clearly not. Is it going to be awesome? Clearly. Is it going to be the best animated film of the year?

...

I saw a commercial, a couple of days ago I'd say, or, wait, actually, only yesterday, where a critic claimed that. That's, quite the, claim to be making, especially in a year where even the Illumination Entertainment offering doesn't suck. (!) The year's been a pretty high watermark for animated films... and of course, there's this new one from Laika, all stop-motion, which is going to be amazing... but...

Something about Laika's pictures, they've never quite been able to, connect all the way, you know? Pretty good. Consistently good. But like Muppet movies: something's just, not all the way, some X factor that's just missing, to make them, consistently, not great.

In a year like 2016, where some critic, doesn't really matter who, someone or anyone who knows what they're talking about, can claim that Kubo's the greatest animated film of the year... it looks like Laika may have found that X factor this year. But I dunno. Just a thought.

(P.S. It's the MUSIC SEQUENCES. If the Muppet movies got, not so forgettable, music, better applied in their films, then maybe...)