The Book of Life

[Dan]

The trailer is up. I think it looks really good.

[EricJ]

With Pixar also working on "Untitled Day of the Dead Project", I'm just hoping this isn't the SECOND time a mediocre Fox movie pulled the rug out from under a Pixar project before it got to production.

[Dacey]

Given del Toro's involvement, I currently have higher hopes for this one.

[Switchblade Sister]

Meh. For a children's cartoon made overseas, I suppose it looks good enough. But they really should hire some designers, as it looks really ugly.

[Dacey]

They're meant to look that way, Switchblade. Like puppets.

[droosan]

A) The Book of Life is 100% made-in-the-U.S.A. (ReelFX Studios has facilities in Santa Monica, California and Dallas, Texas).

B) The movie is directed by Jorge Gutierrez -- creator of the 2007 Nickelodeon TV cartoon El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera.



While Gutierrez' distinctive design style may not be to everyone's tastes .. it's worth noting that El Tigre won an Annie Award for Best Character Design.

I'm personally quite excited; I've wanted to see someone make a 'Puppetoon-esque' CG feature for years, and this comes the closest of anything I've yet seen.

[Switchblade Sister]

They may "mean" them to look like that, but the individual parts are distracting from any character. They're bad. And annie awards are a joke, and always have been. El tigre has the same problem. No amount of busy design will cover up weak storytelling.

[Ben]

The Puppetoon comparison is apt, Droo...nice sideways thinking!

I'm hearing a lot of "Burton rip-off" talk around the net, but there's actually very little similarity. Okay, Tim likes to play with ultraviloet light effects from time to time, but the designs here are much more in keeping with Gutierrez' own sensibilities (perhaps a little *too* close compared to Tigre) but I'm loving the stop-motion puppet feel and the sense that this has been really hand-crafted. The animation is top-notch though, and I'm also getting a bit of a Rango vibe from the overall tone.

If it does turn out to hold up with a decent, different kind of story, I do hope they have a hit with this one.

[eddievalient]

It looks awesome to me. If nothing else, it should end up with at least a small but devoted cult audience like ParaNorman did (now THERE'S a film that deserves more attention).

[James]

Review coming soon, but until then...

you're going to want to see this movie!

[Ben]

Yay! More good comments for this film!

[LotsoA113]

I actually kinda wanna see this one, if only to support a CGI animated feature with such a unique and appealing design!

[James]

AV Review: http://animatedviews.com/2014/the-book-of-life-film/

[Ben]

Cool! This may now be a theater see.

[Dacey]

I thought this was just great. And it was real treat for me, because I hadn't seen one frame of the movie before walking into the theater! So the entire film was a new experience for me.

And I honestly didn't have any issues with the story itself. Something as "out there" as this needs a simplistic storyline so the audience is allowed to lose themselves in the world of the film. But I was not a fan of the framing device involving the schoolkids, which kept pulling me out of the movie. I understand the need to explain some of this stuff to those not familiar with Mexican culture, but there had to be a better way to do it than that.

There were also some moments that were just so beautiful that I wish they could've lasted longer. The very brief version of "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You" could've been made into a much bigger sequence in which the two characters fall in love. But that may be a minor quibble.

All and all, a GORGEOUSLY animated movie that needs to be seen on the big screen (so long as you can get past that opening with the schoolkids!). Real FX has come a long way since Free Birds.