Amidst all of horror film coming out in honor of Halloween , The Book of Life lionise a rather different holiday : the Mexican Day of the Dead . And while , as a film , it has its flaws , Book of Life is like a majuscule party — fulfill with wondrous ribbon , interesting people , passel of playfulness , and a valuable message about the holiday .
Director Jorge Gutierrez want to make a movie that celebrates his personal obsessions , and for better or bad , that is exactly what The Book of Life is . This is a movie that is clear made with love , and that tire out its warmness for Mexican artistry and refinement , English - nomenclature pop music , and animation itself on its sleeve .
The fib itself centers around three booster : Manolo ( Diego Luna ) , latest in a line of toreador with more braveness than sentiency , Joaquín ( Channing Tatum ) , who longs for the bandit - fighting glory of his late forefather , and María ( Zoe Saldana ) , the spunky daughter of the Ithiel Town ’s loss leader and a bud animal rights militant . As youngster , this 3 becomes the subject of a divine wager . The beautiful and ( literally ) fiery La Muerte ( Kate del Castillo ) , ruler of the Land of the Remembered , and the scheming Xibalba ( Ron Perlman ) , rule of the Land of the Forgotten , bet on which boy will finally gain ground María ’s hand . La Muerte chooses cherubic Manolo as her champion and Xibalba chooses bluff Joaquín as his .
Because of circumstances in their childhood ( and a little tampering from Xibalba ) , the three friends farm up in very different ways . Manolo becomes a talented bullfighter , but one virtuously opposed to “ eat up ” ( which is to say drink down ) the bull . ( It ’s hard to say which disappoints his father more , Manolo ’s refusal to kill or his deep earnest wish to become a instrumentalist . ) Joaquín gets the martial aura he lust , but without take to experience true bravery . María is sent to embarkation schooling in Spain , where she fall in sexual love with art and remain ferociously autonomous .
When the three friend reunify , there is still a lot of affection between them , but it becomes clear that María has more in usual with Manolo than with Joaquín . Her courtship is complicated , however , by a gang of monstrous brigand that threatens to pass over their hometown off the mapping . Plus , there is Xibalba ’s interference , which eventually sends Manolo on a journey through the afterlife , including the endless political party that is the Land of the Remembered and the low Land of the Forgotten .
While so many CG animators look to caricature the bland - skinned , plasticine figure style of Pixar and Dreamworks , Gutierrez give Book of Life a aspect that is all its own . It ’s actually a fib within a fib , told to a group of museum visitant , and so all of our master characters are played by wooden wench . This add a fable - like tone to the whole tale , but does n’t take away from the action at law or emotion that we see on - silver screen . And the eccentric designs are nothing short of delightful , sometimes beautiful , sometimes silly , and sometimes grotesque . Sometimes it feels as if Chuck Jones , John Kricfalusi , and the fellows from Aardman animation are all get a fight inside Gutierrez ’s brain .
That ’s before we even get to the gear up designs , which are alone almost worth the Mary Leontyne Price of admission . One of the many reasons that I wish the motion picture spend more time in the hereafter is because so many captivating ocular approximation whip past our eyeballs at lightning speed .
From a storytelling perspective , however , The Book of Life does n’t quite live up to its potentiality . Somewhere late in the 2nd turn , it becomes clear that somewhere beneath all these wonderful melodic theme is a sincerely amazing fantasy picture that never ultimately emerges . It seems that Gutierrez was excited to pack every notion he had into the movie , but was reluctant to edit it down into a stronger narrative .
Still , those notions are great fun to watch out , and some of them are downright brilliant . Gutierrez act with a circumstances of aspects of Mexican culture , from mariachi to bullfighting to lucha libre , with optical nod to the melodic theme that a single family tree might boast both Aztecs and conquistador . And watch for Plácido Domingo as a deadened bullfighter who always want to be an opera Isaac Merrit Singer .
And , as an antidote to all the horror movies of October , Book of Life is a very nice moving picture , one that aims to be pollyannaish and to get the meaning behind the holiday it celebrate . We may adore the moolah skull and skeleton makeup that comes with the Day of the Dead , but Book of Life digs deeper . It asks us to retrieve the the great unwashed who come before us as part of our pursuit become better citizenry . We may honor the dead , the movie say us , but we should also learn from their lives — their joys , their mistakes , their sorrow . We can celebrate our category , it says , without being slave to their legacies . Like the Day of the stagnant itself , The Book of Life is satisfy with delicious ocular trappings , but it ’s that earnest subject matter that sticks with us in the last .
AnimationDay of the DeadMovies
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