Review of The Book of Life (2014) by Michael E — 27 Oct 2014

First off the acting. Book of life has an amazing cast of actors. Diego Luna does a good job as the main character, has a great singing voice surprisingly, and he is very likable in the role, same goes with Zoe Saldana as Maria and Channing Tatum as Joaquin who both give equally fun performances. Hector Elizondo and Grey Delisle do good jobs as Manolos remaining family members. Hector gives a stern performance as Manolos father and Grey gets some very funny lines as Manolo's Grandmother. Manolo knows three mariachi band members played by Gabriel Iglesias, Cheech Marin and Ricardo El Mandril Sanchez and the three are very funny for what they have to work with in the film, which I was afraid that they were going to be the very annoying overused sidekicks to the main characters, but they use them just enough to the point where they don't get annoying, much like what they did with Olaf in Frozen (Oh yes, I went there.) Danny Trejo, Placido Domingo, Jorge Gutierrez (The director), and Ana de la Reguera all give very entertaining performances especially Danny who gets some very funny lines. Carlos Alazraqui does a decent performance as General Posada and it was very cool to hear him be a main character in the film, and he also plays Maria's pet pig which was really funny. There's actually a few voice actors you can spot that are familiar in here like Eric Bauza and a couple more, see if you can catch them. But the three standout performances are Ron Perlman as Xibalba, Kate del Castillo as La Muerte, and surprisingly Ice Cube as the Candle Maker. All three are clearly having so much fun in this movie, hell I think this is the happiest I've seen Ice Cube in any movie. Ron is enjoying this role as much as possible and you get just as giddy as he does sometimes even though you shouldn't be, and Kate gives a calming performance that does get a couple funny lines, and Ice Cube gives a shockingly energetic and fun performance as the Candle Maker.

Now Music. Yea, I went in not knowing that this film was kind of going to be a musical. And I say the word kind because the only people that really sing songs are Manolo and Maria. But for the amount of songs in the film, I'm gonna give this a little extra section to the review. Now a couple of the songs are covers of famous songs like "Can't Help Falling In Love" (side note: one of my favorite Elvis songs), and "You got what I need" but the rest of the music in the movie is also really good. Diego Luna really shows his singing talent and it's funny since he hasn't really sang in a movie before this, but he does a great job.

Now Animation. The thing I love about this film's animation is the same reason why I love Brad Birds work or Genndy Tartakovsky's CG films. The animation looks like it was drawn first and the exact design was made into CG, it's hard to explain what I'm talking about but it looks like 2D animation that was transferred into a CG world. It literally looks like you took El Tigre and threw that exact animation into a 3D environment (There's also a great cameo from El Tigre in the very beginning for a couple seconds so look really fast). The animation looks absolutely gorgeous, some of the most beautiful and fluent animation I've seen in a film. The animation moves extremely energetic and comedic, and when it needs to slow down for the more emotional moments it does. Each character is like a wooden doll and each has the beautiful wooden texture which look fantastic. My favorite type of animation though is in the land of the remembered and on the design of Xibalba, La Muerte and the Candle Maker where each is bright and has so much to look at and admire.

Overall Book of Life is a fantastic animated film. It's funny, got fantastic animation, some great performances and some great music and comedy. It's a must see in my mind.