Wednesday, October 15, 2014

"The Book of Life" movie trailer & brief thoughts...

Well, it certainly seems appropriate that I'm looking forward to "The Book of Life," an animated film directed by Jorge Gutierrez and produced by Guillermo del Toro.  Dia de los Muertos is its primary inspiration! Here's a trailer for the movie, which opens on October 17. 

UPDATE: I was able to catch "The Book of Life" with my 13-year-old daughter on October 19 (my birthday). I have mixed opinions on the film. The animation is really beautiful, and the ways that many of the traditions of Dia de los Muertos are mixed into the film are really well done. However, I felt there were too many one-liners that were trying too hard to be clever. Very typical of animated movies for kids 7-12 years of age. Personally, I wish that the "tone" of the movie had been more like "The Corpse Bride"; more differentiation between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Really, if the whole Dia de los Muertos subplot was taken away, it's a classic story of two guys vying for the hand of a beautiful woman. Still, I'm happy I saw it, and it is a lot better than many other animated films out there. It really is a visual feast. I just didn't feel like I had seen anything REALLY special. 


1 comment:

John Picacio said...

Great post. Saw BOOK OF LIFE yesterday and loved it. I'll check out these other Muertos shorts you posted here. Thanks! :)

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