The Book of Life

I really wanted to love this. The design and texturing of every character, scene and prop is absolutely gorgeous. In that aspect they really recreated Day of the Dead culture beautifully. The gags are sometimes funny, sometimes silly ... I can accept that in a movie made primarily of kids. The story is OK for the most part.

Where it really fell short for me was the soundtrack. There would suddenly be a pop song that totally takes you out of this entire cultural world they put so much effort into creating, to the degree that it's laughable. Not even a Mexican pop song, but some blatant American or English pop that either came across cheesy or completely ridiculous. Whoever chose to put Elvis or Radiohead in this film totally ruined it for me. There is certainly more appropriate Mexican music to support the mood of the film. Why recreate the look of an entire cultural event only to throw in something musically that so completely doesn't fit in the context of the mood, story or film? I don't get it