The Book Of Life UK release date, trailer, cast and characters

There’s a big challenge for animated movies to ensure that they don’t just release another me-too CGI blur fest, and you can see that with the huge variety of great animated movies we’ve had over the years (Antz, Toy Story, Shrek, even The Croods) there’s a lot of effort that goes into making them unique. The Book Of Life is the latest in the long line of CGI-led cinematic cartoons to try to break away from the norm and do something different and from the look of the trailer below, it might just work.

Visually, it’s the dark child of a Toy Story, Nightmare Before Christmas and Shrek mash-up, taking a lot of inspiration from the Mexican holiday festival, Día de Muertos (Day Of The Dead). With Guillermo Del Toro (Pans Labyrinth, Pacific Rim) as one of the film’s producers, it was always going to have an individual style and from what we’ve seen it’s going to be one that looks amazing on the big screen with some great characters and settings.

Release date

The Book Of Life release date was on the the 24th October 2014 for UK and US cinemas, as it hit the big screen in time for Halloween, so we’ll be surprised if it doesn’t inspire a fair few new costumes for years to come. The impressive visuals in the trailer might fool you into thinking that it’s been created by Pixar or DreamWorks, but actually it’s another entry from the relative newcomers Reel FX Creative Studios, which was responsible for last year’s Free Birds. The release date for the DVD, Blu-ray and digital download was the 16th February 2015 in the UK and the 27th January 2015 in the US.

Storyline

The story is a romantic comedy tale that focuses on the love triangle between would-be adventurer Manolo, the charming town hero Joaquin and their love interest Maria. It’s got shades of A Midsummer Night’s Dream though to add even more complexity to the plot as  the spirits La Muerte and Xibalba enter the human work on the Day Of The Dead and learn of the intertwined emotion of the three romantics.

They make a wager on which of the two suitors will win Maria’s heart, but when it looks like Manolo is about to gain the favour of the girl he loves, Xibalba takes matters into his own hands. Not wanting to lose the bet he sends a snake to kill the young man, confining him to the mad cap Land Of The Remembered, and leaving Manolo with the seemingly impossible task of trying to return to the land of the living to be reunited with his love.

The Book Of Life movie poster:

Cast & characters

The Book Of Life has a pretty eclectic mix of a cast list that includes Zoe Saldana (Guardians Of The Galaxy) as Maria, Diego Luna (Casa de Mi Padre) as Manolo and Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street) as the town hero, Joaquin. They’re added to by Kate del Castillo as La Muerte and Ron Perlman (Pacific Rim) as her disreputable betting partner Xibalba.

The rest of the cast includes Christina Applegate (Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues), Ice Cube (21 Jump Street), the legendary Cheech Marin, singer and conductor Plácido Domingo and Danny Trejo.

Production

The story was written by Jorge Gutierrez and Doug Langdale, with Guitierrez also taking on the director duties. In addition to Guillermo del Toro, the film has also been produced by Aaron Berger, Brad Booker and Carina Schulze.

First impressions

With a strong trailer, impressive animation, a very unique style and some great characters The Book Of Life looks like it could be an instant classic, especially with it’s Halloween release date. The storyline sounds interesting and the cast is very strong with more than a few surprises, so it’ll be interesting to see how it all comes together. Unfortunately, you will have missed it at the cinema now, except for the odd one or two extra runs, but with the DVD, Blu-ray and digital download already out, there’s plenty opportunities to catch the film still.

The Book Of Life trailer:

You can see more from Real FX Studios at https://www.reelfx.com/ and see what the BBFC says about the film at https://bbfc.co.uk/releases/book-life-2014.

LA Premier images:

Zoe Saldana (Maria) highlighting the crazy characters that make up the film at the LA premier in October 2014.

Zoe Saldana gets into the Latin spirit of the movie with a Mariachi band in tow.

Diego Luna (Manolo), Zoe Saldana (Maria) and Director Jorge R. Gutierrez are all smiles as they talk The Book of Life.

Kate del Castillo, who plays La Muerte, gets trapped with the the Mariachi band.

Diego Luna gets in on the selfie action at the LA premier of The Book Of Life.

Share The Book Of Life trailer, release date, cast and characters with the links below