Good concept, poorly executed.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Gis and Trino, have been living from repeating the same jokes for over a decade now, they were fortunate enough to make a living, publicizing their work and mingling with the intelligentsia that is supported with money from the Universidad de Guadalajara (the second largest university in Mexico). As this horrendous movie shows, when left to their own devices, Gis and Trino are not much able to make a bad episode of Southpark, its unfortunate that they continue sucking money from a public institution, but hey, that's life south of the border.This movie seems to be more a reunion of old folks and friends, all helping each other to make this project work, unsuccessfully. As its so common with these two guys, they are so full of themselves thinking that whatever occurrences that are funny to them, are obligatory funny to others, no such luck.Is time for new creators and talent, don't waste your money.

What could I say? I grow up with "El Santos" and all his acid criticism of our own behavior, our taboos, and old stupid moral values our society have. I agree this is not a movie for special-effects-drama-lovers, is for middle age Mexicans or foreigners well embedded in a very special Mexican culture. Jis & Trino the creators of the comic strip "El Santos", were aware of all the details of this movie, they invited most of the actors who share its voice for the characters and also invited Elena Poniatowska one of the most well known writers in the country and Latinamerica who made a small appear on the film. I wrote this review because I saw a bad review of the movie ended with "This is truly an insult for Trino and "El Santos", obviously he is from Mexico but he doesn't belong to this part of the culture. Please this is a critic not a comedy. My friends and I really enjoyed this movie we laughed all the time and are more than willing to watch it over and over.

Mexico's biggest animated production of the year, EL SANTOS CONTRA LA TETONA MENDOZA, is currently playing in almost every theater of Mexico City, just like the $145 million production from DreamWorks RISE OF THE GUARDIANS (both opened the same Friday). This animation, in the Hollywood fashion, has the collaboration of many famous actors and musicians that voiced the characters and recorded some original music for it. The most important person involved is not an actor or musician, tough; he is one of the great active directors: Guillermo del Toro (who is, curiously, also involved, as a producer, with "Guardians") And it was until I found out about Del Toro's involvement that I considered checking out "El Santos". Many people I know were looking forward watching it (definitely one of the year's most anticipated films in my country); all of them are older than me and are fans of the original comic strip from the eighties. I have never read anything by the creators of the comic, Trino and Jis. But I do know the directors and the animation studio that made the movie; they haven't done anything good or clever. In the filmography of one of the directors you can find such shameful works as MATANDO CABOS, and the animation studio has made poor movies like MAGOS Y GIGANTES and the Mexican animated movie of TOP CAT. Forgetting about the makers and their past, I went for it mainly for the fun, irreverence and filthy language that I think made the comic strip a cult one (and of course for Del Toro, as I said) – hell, I was reading a newspaper and there he was, Guillermo del Toro talking about his experience of voicing a "El Santos" movie character (Gamborimbo Ponx) that's literally nothing but a little piece of sh*t! He was very happy about it! But rather than going for more crazy stuff like that, "El Santos" offers a bland entertainment, full of pop culture references, that's totally influenced by American cartoons that ultimately are far superior in just about every aspect. Yes, this is the Mexican animation, with the cartoon and crazy version of El Santo, that's out there "wrestling" against Hollywood product but damn, it's nothing different and offers only rehashed material. "El Santos" is taking its style, part of its humor and even some complete scenes from cartoons of the likes of SOUTH PARK and THE SIMPSONS. Fine, every cartoon nowadays should look at those masterpieces to get some inspiration and learning, but do we really need more ROCKY references? Everything here has been already done in either those mentioned shows or the REN & STIMPY show (c'mon, doing a "grotesque close-up" is simply ripping off Ren & Stimpy!). ROCKY references? See the SOUTH PARK episode "The Losing Edge" (2005) for much funnier material. I believe SP is actually the main source of inspiration here. Let's see:-First of all, we have famous movie people voicing not very normal characters; Del Toro and his little piece of sh*t and, for another example, each of the Bichir brothers voicing a pig. In the early years of the mentioned American show the star George Clooney wanted to do a voice and he ended as Stan's dog! They got Clooney's barking! -The mix of live-action footage and animation used here could have been amazingly crazy and innovative if not for SP episodes like "Tweek vs. Craig" (1999). Still, that scene, with el Santos being forced to watch (ala A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) a soap opera was pretty funny. -"El Santos" features a little homage to the anime CAPTAIN TSUBASA – for some minutes the style of the movie changes and tries to recreate the one of the Japanese show. It's, again, an amusing bit, but it's worth mentioning that SP is the king of changing its own style to reference other animations. If we are talking specifically of Japanese animation, well, the episode "Good Times with Weapons" is the masterpiece of that regard. -"Yes, maybe this movie is ripping off American shows that as well ripped off older stuff, but this is about Mexico, our culture and stuff, so what's the big deal?" You may be thinking something like that if you're from Mexico. I'll tell you only one thing: you wanna see a much better animated version of the Mexico City Zocalo than the one presented here? Just watch, yes, the SP episode "The Last of the Meheecans", which even features former president Felipe Calderón! So, it's clear to me that "El Santos" forgot the actual comic strip to be much more focused in the style of humor that American cartoons are masters at. It's a big collection of gags, all put together in an apparent zombie story. I say apparent since the zombies enter from nowhere and suddenly become the main issue of the movie. Pretty dumb stuff for moments – it's an amusing but mediocre product that's the best work yet of its directors and animation studio (it should have been worse). *Watched it on 04 December, 2012

I'm from Mexico and I would really like to support this movie, but it's impossible. I didn't laugh at any moment during the entire movie. "El Santos" is a very popular character in this Country and they did something really awful with him.*Spoilers*A lot of poop, urine and gross sex jokes all the time, a misogynist movie with terrible history and dialogue. Cultural references to other media doesn't help, bad or gross jokes told over a very long period of time. There's a moment when you say to yourself: "Ok, I get the joke. Funny...but not anymore" and then the movie continues on trying to force what the producers or director would call "comedy" through your eyes.This is truly an insult for Trino and "El Santos".