Releasing this week on Blu ray & DVD:
THE BOOK OF LIFE
(Dir. Jorge Gutierrez, 2014) *
This Mexico-set CG-animated musical comedy adventure is a vast improvement over the animation studio Reel FX�s first feature, last year�s FREE BIRDS.
While that unfunny fiasco was about time-traveling turkeys, THE BOOK OF LIFE, the directorial debut of long-time television animator Jorge Gutierrez, has a lot more ambition by way of a fantastical storyline that pays vividly colorful respect to Mexican folklore. That Guillermo del Toro (PAN�S LABYRINTH, PACIFIC RIM) is one of the film�s producers gives it a bit of cinematic gravitas as well.
Unfortunately, it�s often clunky and cluttered, with hard-to-care-about experiences and loads of jokes that were met by silence at the screening I attended � one packed with families with kids.
The characters are accurately described as wooden; through the framing device of a museum tour guide (voiced by Christina Applegate) telling the film�s tale to a group of snotty school children, the major players are represented by handcrafted wooden figures that come to life as marionettes without strings.
Via Applegate�s narration, we are taken to a Mexican landscape sometime in the unspecified past on the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) holiday, and introduced to a love triangle in which two young suitors � the sensitive Manolo (Diego Luna) and the cocky warrior Joaquin (Channing Tatum, in his first animated feature) � compete for the hand of the beautiful, free-spirited Maria (Zoe Saldana).
Watching from above, the squabbling husband-and-wife deities, La Muerta (Kate del Castillo), ruler of the Land of the Remembered, and Xibalba (Ron Perlman), ruler of the Land of the Forgotten, make a high-stakes wager on which suitor will marry Maria.
Manolo�s father (Hector Elizondo) wants him to carry on the family�s bullfighting tradition, but Manolo wants to be a musician. This gives the film the peg for both its transparent �follow your dreams� moral and its musical numbers. Annoyingly interjected into the action is a bunch of Latin-tinged American pop songs, including Rod Stewart�s �If You Think I�m Sexy,� Biz Markie�s �Just a Friend� and even Radiohead�s �Creep.�
There are some decent original songs written by Oscar-winning composers Paul Williams and Gustavo Santaolalla and performed by Luna and Saldana. One entitled �I Love You Too Much� is catchy enough to be a hit. (It�s also a plus that they don�t make Tatum sing.)
Of course, every animated movie aimed at kids has to be in 3-D these days, and this one has more elements that can be enhanced by the format than most � like a sequence involving Manolo running through a mega maze before speeding boulders crash down the corridors and crush him. But it made very little difference otherwise.
The presence of Ice Cube as a cuddly, goofy ancient god called �The Candlemaker� is irksome. The rapper/actor�s performance is �on,� but it seems a cynical piece of casting designed to up the hipness factor. Still, he drew some genuine laughs.
Despite the fact that a character dies, parents won�t have to worry about the film being dark or disturbing enough to give children nightmares. But on the flip side, THE BOOK OF LIFE isn�t magical or memorable enough to really resonate later, either.
* This review originally appeared in the October 16th, 2014 edition of the Raleigh News & Observer.
More later...
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