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| Directed by Jorge R. Gutierrez Written by Jorge R. Gutierrez and Douglas Landale |
Today's subject was apparently being passed around to various studios since at least 2007. It was turned down multiple times for one of two reasons. Either the studio wanted to mess with Jorge R. Gutierrez's artistic vision, or they objected to so many characters being Mexican, and The Book of Life is, at least in an aesthetic sense, distinctly south of the Rio Grande. In fact, that it got released at all speaks to the idea that the Hispanic movie going audience is now large enough to aim a production specifically at them.
Our story is the tale of three children in San Angel, the "town at the center of Mexico". The soft hearted Manolo, who comes from a family of bull fighters but has always wished to be a musician, the courageous and arrogant Jouaquin, the son of a late general who died defending the town from bandits, and the rambunctious Maria, the shared object of their affection.
Their little love triangle draws the attention of this world's two rulers of the afterlife. The saintly La Muerte, who rules over the neon infused, Day of the Dead celebration inspired Land of the Remembered, and the devious Xibalba, who rules over the limbo-land of lost souls that is the Land of the Forgotten. The two ended up with their domains in a bet, and Xibalba has grown discontent with his dreary lot in life. So he proposes another bet over which of the boys will marry Maria, the winner gets the other's domain forever. La Muerte chooses Manolo, Xibalba chooses Jouaquin, and the latter cheats by giving his chosen pawn an enchanted medal that protects him from physical harm.
Cut to years later, when Manolo has followed in his father's footsteps and become a bullfighter, Jouaquin has used his invincibility to become the hero of the town guard. Maria has just come back from studying in Spain, and their love triangle sparks back to life. The boys spend the day fighting each other over Maria's affections, and by the end of the day Manolo seems to have won out, but Maria is bitten by a snake and lies seemingly dead. That's when Xibalba approaches him with a proposition, he can reunite the two. He accepts, and is bitten by the snake twice and dies for real. After this, Manolo discovers that Maria was just in a coma, and Jouaquin's medal has brought her out of it, where she finds that if she doesn't marry Jouaquin, he will leave San Angel, leaving it at the mercy of the bandit king Chakal. Now Manolo must go on a quest to find La Muerte in the land of the forgotten so he can return to the world of the living and save the town.
That's a lot of backstory to get out, and the solution Gutierrez finds is to structure the film in the same style as The Princess Bride, in the sense that the story is being told by a museum tour guide to a bunch of grade school students, where she can act as an omniscient narrator explaining the film's cosmology.
This particular aesthetic isn't for everyone, but it looks gorgeous. The character models resemble wooden puppets, and intentionally so unlike some other productions. The production studio attached, Reel FX, is based in Dallas, and this is their second big animated production. Occasionally it's budget of only 50 million shows through, but most people won't catch the few hiccups present, because they will be distracted by the stylized, distinctly detailed woodcarving appearance of the characters and the world they inhabit.
Unfortunately, the script had nowhere near the same amount of attention to detail put toward it. It comes off as entirely conventional, if you've seen one children's fantasy adventure before, you will be able to guess the story beats more or less consistently throughout. Then again, this wasn't made for critics, it was made for children, and this will certainly keep them entertained.
The Book of Life is a beautiful looking, slightly above average children's movie, that forgoes substance for style and is only worth seeing in theaters for animation buffs and parents who want their kids to have a good time that night.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
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