As far as animated kid’s movies go, Jorge R. Gutierrez’ The
Book of Life is simultaneously wildly inventive and totally familiar,
which are the film’s greatest strengths and weaknesses, respectively.
Fortunately for the viewer, one totally supersedes the other, and the end
result is a stunningly beautiful movie with a story that, while not
particularly original, could be much, much worse, and has enough going on at
the periphery that it is still interesting. And to be honest, there aren’t
enough children’s movies about death, let alone ones that deal with it as
positively as this one.
