La Leyenda de la Nahuala

I went today to see this movie, i didn't know what to expect, since i had not seen any publicity, yet it surprised me, the animations were OK, since they are not the best cartoons ever, but definitely you will be happy to see them as a well-built Mexican characters, however it combines perfectly 2D and 3D animation, the story is great, it knows how to appreciate all our legends and our history, there parts where you will jump of your seat, but after wards you will laugh, there are jokes with double meaning, so both children and adults can laugh, the environment, feels like if your were really there, so many of our traditions, i think there should be more movies of this kind, we should support our Mexican animated movies, instead of spending our money seeing worthless American animated movies ("vacas vaqueras", "tierra de osos", etc.) We should not expect the Mexican movies to be like them, colorful but bored.

I like the movie a lot. It really outlines some of the traditions in Puebla. It mixes mystical with laugh. Very good for kids, not violent, a little scary. But when you are seeing the movie, is like you are getting transported in time. When it gets translated to English, I recommend to see it. I love the Veracruz character, it makes the movie a little humor spicy. On the other hand, mixes the Spaniard system of beliefs with the native Mexican way of exorcism, and combined they achieve a common objective in the fight against evil. There are some peculiarities in the film which will remote you also to your childhood and your family relations. Enjoy.

I watched this movie a lot as a child all the time. My family owned it in DVD and me and my grandmother would watch hundred of times. So now watching it being grown up, I cant really criticize it; I just have too much happy memories of this movie, I can still recognize a lot of mistakes of the movie, mainly some aspect of story and some jokes that not always land. It feels a little bit rushed at some scenes, and you can also feel that were just going from place to place without a lot of hurry or a great threat until the end. I dont really have a problem with the animation, knowing it was done with very little money and I dont think its horrible, its just fine. The characters are the best part in my opinion, but then again, I grew up watching this movie and so I love all of them and even the parts of the story that dont work out so well, I still watch them and enjoy them. Overall I think it could have been much better storywise and I can understand perfectly why some people might not like it, but I just enjoy it so much that I always end up rewatching it again at some point and if you grew watching this movie, you probably also feel the same.

A wonderful movie, very Mexican, in the tradition of being Mexican. Appreciating the movie, however demands certain amount of culture (particularly Mexican) and a knowledge of Mexican legends. The performance of the actors and actresses is absolutely traditional Mexican and it takes a Mexican to really understand it. I hope they make more movies like this. The amount of Mexican legends and traditions is vast and it is very refreshing to see something like this (as opposed to all the trash from commercial cinema aimed at children). There is nothing scary about this movie, it is completely clear that it is pure fantasy and based on traditional legends. The really scary part of this movie is how it has "upset" so many adults, confirming once more, the lack of sense of humor and ultimately how devoid of common sense are so many people in this "new" era of "marketing at all costs".

I'm not going to lie. For a moment, I thought I'd enjoy this film as much as I had in the past, and while on the one hand I thought I would, since I remembered it as being much more "simple", things didn't turn out as I expected. But lets start slowly.

Visually, I have quite mixed feelings about it, because despite being a low-budget animated film and one of the first of its kind on the country (if I'm not mistaken), and having a very crude animation style, the use of color and character design aren't bad at all, at times feeling more professional than they actually are. Some characters really stand out, like El Alebrije, Xochitl, or the sugar skulls, not only in their design but also in their personality, but I'll get to that later. There is some good inspirations here and there to bring "The Day Of The Dead" more alive than ever. Sorry for the joke, lol.

Unfortunately, the rest of the characters are literally one-dimensional stereotypes. Nando just your big brother bully being annoying as hell in the entire film, Teodora is just a human Rarity (and she was even evolving in MLP), Don Andres is just a Spanish knight, La Nahuala is just evil for the sake of evil, Fray Godofredo is a priest who suffers from jokes for being fat, and the rest of the characters I didn't mention are just the typical dumb Mexicans you'd see in a story that tries to make fun of them, as if all Mexicans were like that. I understand it's a comedy, but the only jokes there are here are Mexican stereotypes or jokes about someone being beaten up or someone fat. Probably Santos or Grandma are some of the best characters in the movie but about that...

The worst part is that it's one of those movies that can't decide what it wants to be. I suppose it's part of the series essence (I haven't seen the rest of the films), since while the absurd comedy is present everywhere, they also want you to take the story seriously, as this are suppose to be about real life legends or mysteries. In fact, i would argue Santos has a surprisingly interesting arc that could have been more interesting. However, due to the forced comedy decisions, this "sad and serious" part only lasts for 2 seconds. And thats just one example. Characters like Xotichlt imo seems that they were designed for a different plot both in terms of style and personality, for how much they clash with the rest of the movie.

However that kind of saves the movie, because while the first half is honestly... cringe material... the other half while still not very great, it shows the most creativity out of these artists and ofc the director. The story kind of goes in circles here, and it makes no sense that with what it cost Leo to get in, Grandma and Nanny arrived at were the Nahuala was in seconds. However the art direction is very beautiful here, and some jokes felt a bit refreshing and genius. On top of that the chemistry between Alebrije and Don Andres was perfect, possibly the best part of the film. Feels like this part of the movie was made by a different team? Did this part took the most time? Did anyone in the studio faint out of cringe that they wanted to make something different? Do i really care...? Idk.

Although its still not perfect like i said, there is some animation errors were after an scene, the screen remains freezed without anything going on... The movie really feels half baked in a lot of aspects... And there is not a lot of The Day Of The Dead going on in the movie if we think about it, minus for giving subtle context. Ofc i wouldnt gonna compare it with Coco from Pixar, that would be unfair, but something more related to it would had been nice to see.

Even though this movie feels really amateur in a lot of ways, i do admit that it still has its own charm, in a very "raw" way. Almost like their flaws make them what it is. However i cannot forgive the movie for all the annoying stereotypes and the underused plot and characters, as they had potential. Even as an indie movie it fails, as around the same time i seen this we had "The Secret Of Kells" which destroys this, and both were released on the cinema so its not like it was free to watch. We must be more critical.

I still would recommend this movie, but... with some caution. I dont like it very much so this could be considered an "unnostalgic review", but the potential is there, so maybe the sequels could improve on their ideas? Only time would tell.