Being bone idol can be so much fun

AFTER cruising along on sequel-fuelled autopilot for a few years, Pixar Animation finally kicks everything back into top gear with Coco.

As a stand-alone work in the Pixar canon, it is a clear notch below its 2015 instant classic Inside Out, but a darn sight better than the studio’s most recent original work, The Good Dinosaur.

The place and time we are vividly transported to by Coco is Mexico’s famous Day of the Dead Festival. It is here we meet aspiring mariachi Miguel (voiced by newcomer Anthony Gonzalez), a 12-year-old guitar prodigy straining against his family’s blanket ban on music.

On the eve of festivities in his village, Miguel finds himself magically transported to the afterlife, where he will search high and low for his great-greatgrandfather Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt). Only this revered mariachi — a matinee idol to millions in his heyday — can help the boy unwrap his special musical gift.

The netherworld into which Miguel and his ultra-adorable canine sidekick Dante must journey is pure Pixar creativity at its eye-popping visual best.

Though many of the residents of this dazzling realm — it isn’t heaven, but it sure ain’t hell — are skeletal in appearance, young children will not be experiencing nightmares afterwards.

In fact, viewers of all ages will be too engrossed, enchanted — and in a poignant final act, truly moved — by Miguel’s uplifting and fun little odyssey to be bothered by anything else.

(PG) opens in general release on December 26. Rating: