Hence Manolo is out of the picture and Xibalba can win his bet. So Xibalba tricks him by offering a chance to see her again which of course would mean dying.which he doesn't quite work out in time. In a typically Romeo and Juliet fashion Manolo believes Maria to be dead after she is bitten by a snake sent by.you guessed it, Xibalba. The other lad (Joaquin) becomes a well known military hero who protects the town but is a show off and narcissistic.Īll the while the pair are watched over by the two rulers of the underworld, you might ask what exactly all this has to do with the afterlife, well all that kicks off when Manolo gets killed in a trick by Xibalba. He is the more well adjusted of the two, kind, generous and considerate. One of the lads (Manolo) becomes a bullfighter following his family tradition but is unsure of his fathers expectations and prefers to sing. That is one half of the plot, the other is about the two boys who grow up into strong men and again compete to win the hand of their childhood girlfriend (Maria, seriously couldn't they have used a better and less stereotypical name).

Its also an odd bet because they will both have to wait many many years to see the outcome, and what happens if neither of them marry this girl? surely they could make another simpler wager. These two ghostly spirits make this wager on the young children but I'm not really sure why they do this, or why they even care what these kids get up to in the future. The plot is probably the weakest part of this movie as it really doesn't make much sense or have any real weight to it. The land of remembered being a fun colourful lively afterlife where its always party time, the land of forgotten being like a black and grey coloured Tim Burton vision.OK I promise to stop with the Tim Burton references. If La Muerte wins then Xibalba can no longer mess with mortals for fun and if Xibalba wins then he will rule the land of the remembered. The spirits of the dead La Muerte (ruler of the land of the remembered) and Xibalba (ruler of the land of forgotten) see two young boys competing for the attention of a young girl, they make a bet over which young boy will end up marrying the girl first. The book of life contains all the stories of the world and one such tale revolves around a small town in Mexico (year unknown but I'm guessing its in the past) on the Day of the Dead. Indeed it is also no surprise to find out Guillermo del Toro was a producer on this movie although the entire project has that nice death obsessed Tim Burton-esque vibe to it much like 'Corpse Bride', you could almost say this was a Mexican version of a Tim Burton project. Damn this is so Mexican I half expected Robert Rodriguez to be the director.

The book of life movie