67
Metascore
27 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 91Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment WeeklyOverflowing with hyperactive charm and a spectacular sea of colors, it showcases some of the most breathtaking animation we've seen this decade.
- 88TheWrapAlonso DuraldeTheWrapAlonso DuraldeThe Book of Life manages to be genuinely surprising and engrossing.
- 88McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreMcClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreA Mexican-accented kids’ cartoon so colorful and unconventionally dazzling it almost reinvents the art form. As pretty as a just-punctured pinata, endlessly inventive, warm and traditional, it serves up Mexican culture in a riot of Mexican colors and mariachi-flavored music.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe Book of Life is a visually stunning effort that makes up for its formulaic storyline with an enchanting atmosphere that sweeps you into its fantastical world, or in this case, three worlds.
- 70VarietyGeoff BerkshireVarietyGeoff BerkshireThe Book of Life is undoubtedly stuffed with more business than its fleet, kid-friendly running time can properly handle. Yet Gutierrez’s confident delivery of the material remains so buoyant and passionately felt throughout that he almost gets away with it.
- The characters move around in a thoroughly realized universe full of imaginative and beautifully rendered detail. Too bad the rest of it isn’t more interesting.
- 50Slant MagazineKenji FujishimaSlant MagazineKenji FujishimaJorge R. Gutierrez subsumes the film's darker themes in a relentlessly busy farrago of predictable kids'-movie tropes and annoying attempts at hipness.
- 50New York PostSara StewartNew York PostSara StewartJust in time for Mexico’s Day of the Dead holiday comes this gloriously colorful animated musical, which almost (but not quite) makes up in visuals what it lacks in snappy dialogue.
- 50Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAustin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenVisually arresting but dramatically rote, The Book of Life at least introduces American kids to the Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos and should score points with families looking for kid-friendly movies that reflect aspects of their Mexican cultural heritage.
- 30Village VoiceSimon AbramsVillage VoiceSimon AbramsThe film's rote right-makes-might fantasy wouldn't be so obnoxious if pandering to the lowest common denominator wasn't its default mode.