The Book of Life

The Book of Life is a visually imaginative and entertaining movie based around the Day of the Dead festival. Producer Guillermo del Toro's hand can be felt in the outlandish visuals and macabre humour. While it's nice to see a kid's animated film explore a different culture, I could have done without the wraparound story which basically explains the Day of the Dead for non-Mexicans.
Another problem is that the movie spends almost half its running time on musican and reluctant bullfighter Manolo and invincible hero Joaquin fighting over who gets to "win" their childhood friend Maria as a wife. The gods of the underworld even make a wager over who will win her heart. The film does pay lip service to how problematic this scenario is by having Maria state that she is not a prize and berate Joaquin for his chauvinist behavior. But this doesn't excuse the fact that it takes way to long to get to the land of the dead (someone needs to brush up on their three act structure). Luckily, once Manolo winds up in the Land of the Remembered the film becomes far more enjoyable and builds to a rousing finish.
The voice cast is well used, especially Ron Pearlman as the evil but not really Xibalba (not to be confused with Sebulba) and the soundtrack makes good use of familiar music, including Ennio Morricone's The Ecstasy of Gold. Ultimately this is an ambitious and unique animated film that made me wish the story was as inventive as the gorgeous animation.