The Worst Kids Movie EVER produced by Hollywood

Book of Life is a 2014 movie produced by Fox and it tells a complicated tale somewhat based on the Day of the Death. Some people have compared it with Coco, and arguably Pixar wrought some inspiration from it. This movie is mostly obscure and few care about it, the only reason I remember is because I am interested in animation movies and their messages for the audience. 

I decided to check it out and honestly I think this is the worst movie for children EVER produced by Hollywood. Yes, there are other even more obscure movies which are arguably worse in terms of quality, but this movies are made by extremely small studios with very little resources, not released internationally by Fox. This movie is not only bad in terms of quality; it recollects within it's stinky intestines most of the terrible messages I have protested against before. 

So sit back, relax, and prepare to learn about the worst kids movie ever produced by Hollywood. 

The Plot

The main plot of the movie is centered around a story a museum woman tells to a group of children; She says that when people die there are two options for them: the first one is the "Land of the Remembered", a happy place ruled by a pelagian skeleton lady named Catrina. They will stay there for as long as people remember them. Once they are forgotten, they will go to a depressing and gray place called "Land of the Forgotten", which is ruled by an cynical demon thing called Xibalba where they will live for an indeterminate time until evaporating into dust. 

All of this information comes from a the "Book of Life", a book in which information about everything can be supposedly found. 

One day, the museum woman tells us, Xibalba tells Catrina that he is tired of ruling the Land of the Forgotten and wants to change his luck. Catrina refuses arguing he is a liar and a cheater, but Demon Thing proposes to make a bet and she somehow agrees. 

They visit the Mexican town San Angel, where 3 children (Joaquín, María and Manolo) are playing. Joaquín is a poser who only cares about appearances, Manolo is  a courageous and sensitive simp and María is a vegan girlboss. It is obvious that the boys compete over María, so the entities bet as follow: If Joaquín marries María, Xibalba wins and can change his destiny; but if Manolo marries her, Catrina wins. 

Xibalba does the proper Demon Thing which is start cheating and gives to Joaquín a magical medal that will make him braver and protect him from death. This, he thinks, will make María fall for Poser.

María gets sent to a convent school in Spain as punishment for being a girlboss, Joaquín enters the military to become a hero and Manolo gets trained to be a bullfighter despite the fact his thing is music. Hem, What does this remind me of?

When they grow up María returns and everyone in San Angel makes a big bullfighting event starring Manolo. Manolo prepares to kill the bull but he sees María on the reflection of his sword, so he refuses to do so and everyone mocks him. Throughout the following night Manolo and Joaquín compete for her hand to the point of dueling. María, because she is a girlboss, refuses them both but eventually she falls for Manolo's songs and they kiss. 

Demon Thing sees this and gets angry, so he makes María enter in a cataleptic state and later offers to kill Manolo so that he can be reunited with her. Manolo accepts the assisted suicide and enters the Land of the Remembered, where he meets his pathetic bullfighter ancestors and his mom. 

While looking for María, Manolo finds out he got cheated and the girl is now getting married to Poser. He decides to travel to the Land of the Forgotten which is now ruled by Skeleton Girl to receive some help from her. 

After proving himself to a sauron-like entity; Manolo enters a cave full of candles where a being called the Wax Man who is definitely not a parody of God Almighty tells Manolo that there is nothing written for him in "The Book of Life" because he "wrote his own story" and so can get a chance to be with María. 

They visit Catrina who gets angry at being cheated by Demon Thing yet again and asks him to resurrect Manolo but Balby insists he will only let the lovers reunite if he faces his greatest fears. 

Meanwhile, a group of bandits under the leadership of a villain named Chacal are coming to San Ángel and will kill everyone. They start by killing Manolo's father, the one who forced him to be a bullfighter.

Manolo must now fight against all the bulls slaughtered by his pathetic ancestors, but he can't slain them so he instead starts singing a song about how killing bulls is bad so the beasts forgive him and the entities somehow manage to resurrect him.

Chacal is about to commit genocide but fortunately Manolo and his ancestors arrive and start humiliating the thieves. Joaquín loses his magical medal and this somehow makes him learn that being a Poser is bad. Eventually, both of them start working together and Manolo kills Chacal by smashing him with a bell. 

For a moment there is a silence because everyone thinks Manolo died but he is fine because our now humble Joaquín gave the magical medal to him. 

This is the end of the movie, so the lady finishes her story and the kids go back to school. 

1: First Problem: An Ugly Movie with Terrible Representation

Every single Mexican outside of the main cast has hideous noses that either protrude from their faces like trumpets or are squished against their faces like inflamed snout of a hog. The mariachis are not dressed like mariachis but like altar boys, there was a Catholic priest with a hairstyle that made him look ridiculous and even the bulls you are asked to respect look like something from a creepy nihilistic Cartoon Network show.

None of the backgrounds actually look like the animators went to Mexico and even the rip-off Heaven looks uninteresting. Their representation is either offensive or superficial.  I don't think representation is as important as critical theorists want you to believe, but if you are going to talk about real places in your movie you should try to paint them as accurately as possible so that no one is misinformed. 

The movie is set around the Mexican revolution (early XXth century), yet everyone acts anachronistically and it is infuriating. For example, the nuns enter the bullfighting show which is not something a nun of the time would do. Multiple things happen in this movie that should shock the majoritarily Catholic population of this city and yet no one cares. The revolution was a huge event that affected all Mexico and yet very few and ambiguous to it references can be found.

2: Second Problem: The Characters have No Depth

The characters have very little development and anything you learn from them is either hamfisted or evil. Joaquín, for example, offered the possibility of a good character arc by learning to be humble but he changes immediately around the last 20 minutes of the movie with little explanation. There are some attempts to tackle the topics of Coco with Manolo (your heritage vs your passion), but everything is lame and of course we have yet again, the Be-Yourself message. 

María is a girlboss with no development. I called her a vegan because  she thinks eating pigs and killing bulls is wrong; she also thinks that being a housewife is demeaning. I get that everyone in San Ángel was misogynistic but then the movie doesn't deal with this topics either. It just says "housewife bad, misogyny bad" and that's it.

Things do not improve with the entities. Catrina is charming but she participates in the bad messages of this movie by trusting Demon Thing will not cheat on her again, despite evidence to the contrary. 

I already mentioned Wax Man is likely a parody of God Almighty. This is because of his character design: he is supposed to be some sort of god, equilibrator of evil and bad, he Book of Life's best friend and his character design is similar to the images commonly associated with God.

Xibalba is a coward and throughout the movie does heinous things but then he says I am sorry -Something a real narcissist liar would also say- and everything is fine. It is also implied both Skeleton Lady and Demon thing have a toxic relationship and of course children will not learn from them how to solve their future relationship problems. 

3: Third Problem: The Worldbuilding is Extremely Foolish 

It is implied that the Book of Life is the "god"who gives his powers to Catrina, the Waxman and Xibalba. Why? Who wrote this book, why is he so powerful and why does it seem he has a will of its own? Nothing is explained. 

But the thing that really angered me is how death works in this movie. Just like in Coco: if you are remembered (either because you preserved your family or became a celebrity) it is alright and all happy, but if you are forgotten you will go to Hell, ruled by Demon thing and full of misery. Coco made the same mistake; but man, this movie takes it way too far and none of the characters seems to care. 

According to this cinematographic abomination, Celebrities and politicians will meet a happy afterlife just because people know about them; while everyone else (orphans, feral children, the infertile, poor and dysfunctional families, hermits and others) will go to Hell. It is not based on whether you are a sinner or a saint: your fate depends on the feeble memory of mankind. 

You know that when your movie for children has the plot of a cosmic horror novel; you have failed big time. 

To make things worse, this actually contradicts the only good message of the movie! Joaquín learns at the end of the movie that his pursuit of worldly fame is useless and he should be humbler, and yet in this movie your only way of maintaining your happy afterlife is by getting worldly fame, like Alexander or Napoleon. Why is this movie so stupid?

Conclusion

Other movies made by Hollywood only have one or two bad messages, and yet this movie has nearly all of the ones I have mentioned before in this blog, particularly, the Millstones in the Road series. 

It has the Be-Yourself Message with Manolo, it has the good villain trope with Xibalba, it has feminism with María, it has pagan and blasphemous theology everywhere, it has 2 extremely dirty jokes. It even has the suicide glorification part (the scene where Manolo receives assisted suicide from Demon Thing). I don't know if there is a movie worse than this one, but for the moment, and by judging both its message and its quality, this may be the worst movie for children ever made by Hollywood.