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Sep
21
2008

Fantastic Fest 2008: Santos

Posted by Mack at 6:44pm.

Posted in Film & DVD Reviews , Cult, Comedy, Drama, Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Mexico & South America, Fantastic Fest 2008.

Ever get those moments when you wonder what could have been. Of course we all do. This wasn’t one of those times because that would have instilled hope in anyone reading this that this movie could have been better. Very much like one of its subplots this film was shit. A word of caution, when the enticing offer of free beer is made to all who attend because the director feels that his film is best viewed when you’re drunk that’s a hint how tip top its is going to be. It’s not that being drunk is going to make the movie funnier or more outrageous. I think director Nicholas Lopez is hoping that we got so shit-faced that we would forget the movie we saw. Some will call it unrestrained and ambitious. I call it a mess from start to finish. 

Santos is the story of a group of young children who were transferred from an alternate universe with the hope that they would save both parallel universes when the time comes. Every few years a comet travels nearby the earth and on their birthday powers are awoken in our hero and villain, Salvador and Arturo. Fast forward a few years and both men are preparing the release of their comic empire. On the eve of their big release worlds fall apart, an evil empire is born and friends are lost. Salvador is on the verge of losing his mind and Arturo has everything to gain, including their childhood sweetheart. Enter the feces-addicted sensei, Antropomosco, from the other universe. Yes, I said feces-addicted. There are scenes of him doing lines of shit on the tank top of a toilet. Arturo waves a shit stained finger in front of his nose after he has captured and tortured him. Moving on, Antropomosco alerts Salvador of his latent gifts and powers, telling him he is and was a Santos, as were his friends, and entrusts him to stop Arturo and save the planet from utter destruction. 

Billed as a superhero romantic comedy Santos challenges conventions surely but it is such a disjointed hybrid of rom com, hero and potty humor films that it never quite flows properly and feels labored and disjointed. Really, I lost interest in the characters and their plight very quickly. So much of the story distracted me and appalled me that I no longer felt invested in the story. Perhaps some of the fuel to this fire was that this was a fresh print, as fresh as fresh can be. It hadn’t even been tainted with burnt on subtitles. So perhaps the person working the subtitles during the film also had a few pops and was so shit-faced they fucked up the timing.

We were after all encouraged to drink beer to make the movie better. 

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Reader Comments

  1. SadicXXX 09/21/2008 @ 10:15pm

    It is sad to know that this son of a bitch still does horrible movies. I am Chilean and I just came out of Film school, in sound postproduction, and it makes me mad to know that all the money is invested in this idiot. Here in Chile there is very very litle money to make movies, and they usually invest it in really really bad choises. I hope one day some one will learn and give that money to someone that is really talented. Its very frustrating to work for idiots, and I have worked with a lot of them! I try to think that one day a real director with good ideas will hire me to do my job as a sound postproductor.

  2. patovalla 09/22/2008 @ 6:29am

    :(

  3. Rodney 09/22/2008 @ 5:41pm

    Brutal.

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