And they mean business!

You're watching Beyond The Trailer's review of The Book of Life!

This Halloween...

Whoa!!!!

Please help me reunite with the love of my life.

Stay here with us!

We have epic fiestas everyday -

and all you can eat churros!!!

Comes an adventure...

You so strong, Joaquin!

Thanks, I work out a lot.

Unlike anything you've ever seen!

Tchkal is here!!!

Why don't you pick on someone your own size?!

'Cause no one's that big, man!

Haha! Hey buddy...

Back when Walt Disney was alive,

and pioneering the medium,

animated movies were a painstaking process that took years to complete.

And at every level you needed, more or less,

someone who could DRAW.

Now just ask any comic book publisher today,

and they'll tell you that's a very small talent pool.

I mean, you don't just have to be able to draw,

but you need to able to animate motion!

It's like everyone can draw a comic book cover,

but very few can draw sequential art

in other words, tell a story.

And the reason I need to use comic books as an example

is because hand-drawn animation has basically become extinct!

Audience selection has chosen computer animation

and thanks to video games

and the copious amount of electronic devices we use in everyday life,

there are far more people who are handy with a mouse than a pencil!

Computer animation is a very unique process

and not every step requires someone who can draw

for a better look I hope you'll click here to check out my behind the scenes tour of Blue Sky Studios

and how they go about making an animated movie.

So with a much bigger talent pool,

we now have many more players in the animation game!

At this point you're familiar with them all!

Pixar, Dreamworks,

Disney Animation

Blue Sky Studios, Sony Animation

and Illumination Entertainment.

Pretty darn crowded.

But then just earlier this year,

Canada's ToonBox Entertainment in partnership with South Korea

had a big enough hit with The Nut Job

that The Nut Job 2 is slated for January 2016!

And just a few months earlier than that

Reel FX got on the board with Free Birds

now while there's no Free Birds 2 in development

Reel FX is now back with The Book of Life

and it's looking like a pretty solid entry.

It's got an all star voice cast

with Diego Luna, Channing Tatum and Zoe Saldana

Behind the camera is Jorge Gutierrez

moving up to feature films from television

the Nickelodeon show "El Tigre The Adventures of Manny Rivera"

just as Genndy Tartakovsky

moved up from Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack

to Hotel Transylvania for Sony Animation

And producing the film as well as adding even more star power

is celebrating Mexican filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro

Hmm, while Walt Disney was a friend to South America himself

back in those days Hollywood would never tailer a film to such a specific foreign demographic

however

not only has Hollywood become a far more global business

with Mexico itself a top market

but the latino audience in America has grown

why just recently

Eugenio Derbez's Instructions Not Included

became the highest grossing spanish language film ever in the US

with around forty-five million!

Not bad!

So, does the book of life represent where Hollywood animation is headed?

Or is it just a nice try?

Visually, The Book of Life is a stunning film

and I had heard the director, Gutierrez,

say that his goal in making the book of life was to create a film that was as beautiful as the concept art for it

and I think he has 100% achieved that goal with the film.

I also think this is a wonderful valentine to Mexican culture.

I finally understand The Day of the Dead!

And why it's such a popular and respected holiday in Mexico.

Of course I'd heard of it before

but I never quite understood exactly what was going on

and this movie does a fantastic job of introducing it and celebrating it.

And I also have to wonder, if just like China did with Kung Fu Panda from Dreamworks Animation

if the Mexican film industry isn't going to look at this film

and say "Hey, why didn't WE make that?"

I also thought that the voice acting here was very, very good.

Now, of course, everyone did a good job

but the real stand out was, I have to say, Channing Tatum

because this role allowed him to do so many things that you would THINK would be outside his comfort zone

but totally are in his comfort zone!

He just really goes for it, he has no ego, no fear of looking foolish

and as a result he doesn't come off as looking foolish at all!

Now of course Diego Luna and Zoe Saldana, to be fair

have more serious, straightforward roles

they're our hero and heroine

so they don't have as much room to play as Tatum does

so that's why I think maybe they don't stand out quite as much - it's just because of the material.

But despite those three things

the visuals, the Mexican culture and the voice work

for some reason The Book of Life didn't totally click for me.

And I thought about it and thought about it

and I decide the reason

is because it skews very young.

Now for very young viewers

it's a wonderful film because it has so many great lessons.

Lessons I think you'd want any younger viewer to be exposed to

in many different areas!

It covers a surprising number of life lessons in one single film

but I guess it is called The Book of Life.

And again as I said those visuals are so good

and it's so nice to see another culture celebrated by Hollywood

that older viewers who happen to see the movie

will certainly have something to distract them from a very

traditional and simplistic story.

Now as some of you I'm sure will bring up

I had said that Frozen skewed pretty young as well

but that was popular with people of all ages!

And again both films had, I think,

what are very important messages

and I'm curious to see if the messages incorporated in this movie

will help it maybe do better as well

even though the storytelling might not be up to par.

But at the same time

the messages here, I think, aren't as groundbreaking as those in Frozen

which had a lot to do with girl power.

There are some girl power elements here

but in the more traditional sense.

But I think the big difference between Frozen and The Book of Life

is the music.

I think we can all agree that Frozen owes a great deal of its success to its music

and while there are a handful of original songs here

they are - none of them are showstoppers in The Book of Life

and none of them are even memorable!

In fact, as someone who's not a big music fan

well I enjoy music obviously

but I'm not - I don't have a lot of knowledge about music

so I couldn't even pick out all of the original songs for you

because they do use some other famous songs

they re-use them

y'know almost like a cover band

and when they did that, when I could recognize a popular song

that had originated somewhere else

it even went so far as to take me out of the story.

So very close - The Book of Life comes very close to greatness

and it is very good on multiple levels

but I don't think it's an instant classic.

I would say that Pixar can go ahead and still make that

Dia De Los Muertos movie they have planned

I think that's still something they can pursue

especially since I think it will be much darker and more sophisticated

which is kind of Pixar's specialty at this point.

However, I would like to point out

that because there's so much talent obviously now in the animation pool

thanks to computer animation

that everybody has to step up their game

across the board

including unfortunately this movie

because the bar is just getting really high.

So, Book of Life,

if you have younger viewers

that you have, y'know, in your family

or that you know of that you'd like to take to the movie

I think this is going to be a great thing for you to go and do

If you're interesting in Mexican culture

be it your own or something you want to be exposed to

this is also a fantastic movie to go see.

And also by the way,

I recommend the 3D!

Animation continues to be where 3D is best utilized

the picture stays bright

and they do a good job having things pop out of the screen

but it's a breathtaking beautiful movie

I just wish the storytelling was little more mature and sophisticated.

Alright, so that's my review of The Book of Life

if you've seen the film, I hope you'll leave your own thoughts down below

thank you so much for tuning into my review

and you can check out some more episodes right now!