When the 2017 Pixar animated film, Coco, was released to the world, people fell in love with its emotional storytelling, likeable characters, and breathtaking visuals that took inspiration from the Mexican culture, particularly in regard to the celebration of The Day of The Dead. With this in mind, many people have forgotten that it wasn’t the first mainstream animated movie to showcase this kind of narrative and even visual style, as the 2014 CG animated film The Book of Life, gave off very similar a very similar impression. While the comparisons between each film seem to stop at general references of the culture, and each film felt distinctly its own in terms of delivery, content and style, there was an element of comparison, and although it isn’t as strong as Coco, The Book of Life still has a lot of charm, visual eye-candy, and likeable elements to make for a decent kids flick. In a small Mexican town, three young friends are watched over by two spirits of the afterlife, La Muerte (voiced by Kate de Castillo) and Xibalba (voiced by Ron Perlman) who wager between which of the two boys named Manolo and Joaquin (voiced by Diego Luna and Channing Tatum) will be the one to win the heart of their friend, Maria (voiced by Zoe Saldana). After several years have passed, the three have changed greatly since they were children. Manolo aspires to be a musician but is forced by his father to be a bullfighter like the rest of his family, which is difficult as he never wishes to kill the animal, and Joaquin is a warrior impervious to pain because of a medal given to him by Xibalba, who is hoping to win the wager through unfair means as his success would allow him to have control over La Muerte’s realm, that being the Land of the Remembered. Afraid to lose, he stages a scenario which makes Manolo believe Maria has died, which causes him to take his own life, which sends him to the land of the dead and seemingly wins the wager. After being reunited with his deceased family, Manolo learns of Xibalba’s trickery and travels through this spiritual realm in order to return to the land of the living, all the while Joaquin and Maria are forced to deal with a group of bandits who are attempting to steal Joaquin’s medal and are willing to wipe out the town in order to get it, which would result in all the dead being forgotten and locking Manolo out of the living realm forever. Only barely breaking even at the box office, The Book of Life wasn’t a trailblazer but received positive reception and is a movie that has a wonderfully distinct visual style that proudly showcases it Mexican routes, but also suffers from generic characters, bad pacing, forgettable humor, and a style over substance mentality.

The film was distributed by 20th Century Fox and was directed by Jorge R. Gutierrez, who had previously only directed short films, and a few animated series like Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, with this being his first feature length. On the surface, the outline for the narrative isn’t too bad, containing aspects of love existing past different realms, being able to explore various dimensions of the spirit world, and connecting it all back to a friendship between three people who are forced to be one thing, but are capable of more than what they’re told to be. Seeing a decently budgeted mainstream animated movie talk about Mexican culture and folklore is cool to see and it’s handled in a way that’s digestible for kids, but still kept genuine enough to feel authentic. There’s even a hint of tragedy laced in this premise as the concept of the lead following his love to the other world does have a bit of a Eurydice and Orpheus from Greek tragedy vibe to it, but this story isn’t particularly deep, thought-provoking, or even that dramatic. Its insistence on following this basic love-triangle with all the lame components that come with that cliche from a dramatic standpoint are pretty annoying, especially in an environment and aesthetic where being cliched should be the last course of action. The film is at its best when it’s exploring the land of the dead, which is where the visual style, Mexican culture and even sparks of emotional resonance are at its strongest, but the film drags its feet until it reaches that point, and everything established earlier isn’t interesting or likeable enough to make it worth it. The pace of the film does become a problem when you compare the two halves of the film, where the first half is slow, predictable and though presented in a unique style, contains a lot of stale cliches from western media, and the second half is a lot more visually interesting, contains more sprinkles of engaging and unique material specific to the Mexican culture, and creates enough emotional investment to make the audience care about where it’s going, even though it is still pretty rushed. With that said, the ending kind of falls back into the territory that the opening existed in, being very safe, not being too engaging or surprising, and wraps up with a fine but not great conclusion.

The main characters, while nothing bad, are quite generic. It’s a shame that despite every character in this film having really strong unique designs that make them stand out just from a visual perspective alone, it couldn’t put in more effort in the writing department to make them more intriguing. It is nice that despite relying on a few generic cliches, the film avoids elements that would’ve been very lazy like making Channing Tatum’s character a bad guy and even how they how resolve the situation between the antagonist, it knows to its credit that the emotions of the characters is what creates the conflict in this film and knows that it doesn’t need to pull that element out to make it work and shows that it is smarter than its given credit for. With that said, the leads still aren’t amazing, but they work okay enough. Diego Luna plays your typical good-hearted protagonist who can sing a beast to sleep rather than slay it, and while that resolution is nothing special, he works enough in the main role. Zoe Saldana as the love interest is stuck with a pretty basic character whose whole identity is either around being a prize or not being a typical ”girly girl” (which is not that special anymore) but the voice acting is strong enough that it gives her a bit more, Channing Tatum could feel out of place in this cast, but his style of delivery does match the film’s unique tone and as previously mentioned, they don’t go down the cliched route with him which prevents him from just being a generic trope, Sadly most of the characters in the human world are not very interesting and some are even made to be incredibly unlikeable. Manolo’s father voiced by Héctor Elizondo is so critical and forceful with his son’s action, even pulling the ”shame your dead mother” card on him, that it makes an already easily unlikeable bland trope and makes it even more hateable. The side characters in the real world are rather pointless and irritating, often playing up that style of comedy in Gutierrez’s project that isn’t always the best, but they thankfully don’t impact much to the main story. The best characters are the ones in the spirit world, as they are given the best designs and are allowed to have the most fun with their material. Ron Perlman as Xibalba is both funny and threatening, and Kate del Castillo brings a level of grace and ethereal beauty, but also sass and spunk to La Muerte which also makes her fun. Its enjoyable watching them work well off each other as both lovers and rivals, giving what should be a contest between gods and making it like a petty lover’s competition, it’s fun in a way that doesn’t kill the mood or cut the tension needed for this conflict. The Candle Maker spirit voiced by Ice Cube feels a bit forced in and is quite annoying throughout, seemingly trying to capture Robin Williams Genie vibe out him, but he isn’t in the film as much as the others, so it isn’t too distracting.

The biggest highlight of this film as well as most of Gutierrez’s properties, is the visual style and the animation behind it. This was originally supposed to be a DreamWorks film before they left the project due to ”creative difference” and you can definitely feel how this humor, story and visual style would’ve matched with their atmosphere, but it feels much more authentic coming from a place where it’s allowed to be fully expressed and not held back. It was also produced by Guillermo del Toro (a known lover of animation as well as creative expressions of cultures) and while the film doesn’t contain the same level of artistic sophistication and darkness that his films do, you can see why he would want to be attached to it. The designs for all the characters are heavily based on Mexican dolls and artistry, which further soaks the film in the culture as well as gives the film is own unique look, as no other animated movie at the time (and even to some extent now) looked like it. The spirits are all amazingly realized in this film and the world of the dead is such a marvel to witness with its vibrant colors, creative structure, and flexibility to go off-the-walls in moments due to not be restricted to real-world logic. The world of the living is already very colorful and full of great designs, but the world of the dead doubles that with even more bizarre and mystical environments with ghostly creations and set pieces. The music is not created for the film and is taken from already existing songs. While they don’t also match with the tone and Mexican folktale atmosphere this story is trying to capture, they aren’t awful by any means, and there’s one song near the end involving a bullfight that is quite nice and emotionally effective. The humor has this level of immaturity to it that can be a little grating at times and even worse, it never feels very distinct or unique in a movie that really feels like it’s trying to stand out. While the writing has a few decent ideas in the story-telling department, it’s too simple and a bit too Westernized to be outlandish or different.

Despite its draw backs, The Book of Life does have enough of its own identity as well as its own unique pros and cons to help it stand out against something like Coco which is similar in certain story threads and visuals style but deviate in many ways. If Coco is a lavish and enriching high-class Mexican restaurant, The Book of Life is a slightly clutter but homely small scale Mexican restaurant, both are good in their own ways and express their cultures while presenting themselves quite differently. This film has a lot of appealing visuals, creative environments, and a nice sprinkling of Mexican culture. Though it is a style over substances film, and the story, characters and humor needed some improving, you will still get something special from marveling at this perfectly festive film.

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