The Book of Life is an interesting movie because it part incredibly generic and part insanely unique and original. Fortunately, the unique and original outshines the generic, but it can still be troublesome at times.
The Book of Life is literally a love triangle movie. From the very beginning of the movie it clearly states: This a movie about two boys who love the same girl. The nice thing about this is that the movie doesn't hide its premise at all. It isn't a movie that simply has a love triangle in it, it is a movie about the love triangle.
That being said, the movie's love triangle isn't gosh awful, but it is kind of annoying. Either the character's are overly obsessive or the girl is kind of a jerk for taking advantage of the obvious love triangle. However, the character's themselves aren't bad and are pretty good.
The plot to The Book of Life isn't a bad plot, and it has some very unique elements but it isn't a very deep or complex plot. The thing about this movie is that it doesn't need to be complex. Its main purpose is to be highly entertaining, cute, and very very beautiful. And at that... it succeeds. The wonderful thing about this movie is that it proved something that all animation fans have been waiting for for years: A CGI movie can look as beautiful as its concept art and the transition from sketches to 3D can look flawless. A lot of 3D animated films will lose elements of their original art and vision. They will have the general feel, but they usually lose something. But when you look at this movie's concept art and the final product you can tell that nothing was lost (if anything, the movie looks more beautiful and energetic than the concept art).
This movie is simply stunning to look at and everything in it has a lot of energy. What is even more interesting about this movie's animation is that is proves that you don't need insane amounts of detail to make a beautiful 3D movie. A lot of 3D animated movies make beauty through complexity (and The Book of Life is complex) but it knows that the control of color, lighting, and atmosphere is what really makes something beautiful.
If there is one other major issue with the movie it is that its pacing is really really fast and sometimes emotional scenes pop out of nowhere or scenes that are supposed to be important only last a few seconds. It feels like some of the less important scenes should've been shorter and the more important scenes should've been longer.
Overall, The Book of Life was an enjoyable movie that had amazing animation. A lot of its design choices and characters are insanely creative and just stunning. Unfortunately, it suffers from some pacing issues and some clichés, but it is entertaining, nonetheless.
The Book of Life is literally a love triangle movie. From the very beginning of the movie it clearly states: This a movie about two boys who love the same girl. The nice thing about this is that the movie doesn't hide its premise at all. It isn't a movie that simply has a love triangle in it, it is a movie about the love triangle.
That being said, the movie's love triangle isn't gosh awful, but it is kind of annoying. Either the character's are overly obsessive or the girl is kind of a jerk for taking advantage of the obvious love triangle. However, the character's themselves aren't bad and are pretty good.
The plot to The Book of Life isn't a bad plot, and it has some very unique elements but it isn't a very deep or complex plot. The thing about this movie is that it doesn't need to be complex. Its main purpose is to be highly entertaining, cute, and very very beautiful. And at that... it succeeds. The wonderful thing about this movie is that it proved something that all animation fans have been waiting for for years: A CGI movie can look as beautiful as its concept art and the transition from sketches to 3D can look flawless. A lot of 3D animated films will lose elements of their original art and vision. They will have the general feel, but they usually lose something. But when you look at this movie's concept art and the final product you can tell that nothing was lost (if anything, the movie looks more beautiful and energetic than the concept art).
This movie is simply stunning to look at and everything in it has a lot of energy. What is even more interesting about this movie's animation is that is proves that you don't need insane amounts of detail to make a beautiful 3D movie. A lot of 3D animated movies make beauty through complexity (and The Book of Life is complex) but it knows that the control of color, lighting, and atmosphere is what really makes something beautiful.
If there is one other major issue with the movie it is that its pacing is really really fast and sometimes emotional scenes pop out of nowhere or scenes that are supposed to be important only last a few seconds. It feels like some of the less important scenes should've been shorter and the more important scenes should've been longer.
Overall, The Book of Life was an enjoyable movie that had amazing animation. A lot of its design choices and characters are insanely creative and just stunning. Unfortunately, it suffers from some pacing issues and some clichés, but it is entertaining, nonetheless.