Vivo (2021)

Vivo is strategically contrived to hit audiences’ pleasure spots, blending a grown-up-friendly story of a Latin-music couple whose careers took them in separate directions with all the hyper-caffeinated comedy action the kiddos expect from the medium. Plus, the songs build on one another, hooking in your head and snowballing as the movie develops.

The film’s computer-animated visuals, vividly rendering such locales as Cuba, Key West and the Everglades, are consistently arresting. But it’s the joyous musical numbers and sentimental but never treacly tale at its center that make Vivo such a winning effort.

While a majority of the movie is a rambunctious road trip with a few call-outs to Studio Ghibli (Michael Rooker’s Lutador the giant python would likely earn a smile from Miyazaki), there’s heart in the evolving relationship between Gabi and Vivo and a solid emotional payoff at the end.

A sweet if slight love story.

If the Miranda musical touches are getting familiar, they’re still a lot fresher than the script here, yet another story of a pet animal on a mission and its special bond with a lonely child.