During the 2000s, Argentine television has provided series that managed to captivate the Argentine public and 100% Luchas has been one of them. This show was a decent archievement in introducing wrestling to Argentine television. Due to the good reception that the show had. They thought that bringing the wrestlers to the big screen would ensure a resounding succes. Just as the show managed to introduce wrestling to Argentine television. This film would give Argentine cinema the chance to offer a good action film. The curious thing is that when Argentina produces TV series, it doesn't do a bad job and that's why it has made series that are remembered by young people from the 2000s. But when Argentina makes films, in most cases it ends up making bad or mediocre films.
100% Lucha, La Película aims to be an action film like those that were a phenomenon in the 80s. There are mostly well-executed fight scenes and that is something that the film does not fail at. While not all of the wrestlers from the TV show are here, Viloni and La Masa were always the most iconic and in this movie they have the relevance they deserve. Viloni has what it takes to be a great action hero like Van Damme or Stallone. This could have been a great action movie, but it has things going against it that keep it away from being a merely decent movie. The movie has quite a few cliches from an 80s action movie and they weren't handled properly. Koshe is the generic Russian villain that has been seen many times in other movies and he is so over the top that it's hard to take him seriously. His henchmen are the kind that have been seen in movies or cartoons. The ninjas fight well, but most of them are useless because they are defeated in too far-fetched a way. The romance between Viloni and Fabrizzio's sister was really forced. They wanted to use the cliche of the action hero getting the lady, but it lacked development and wasn't convincing. The children in the film were also not well utilized.
The idea of underground wrestling threatening professional wrestling is a good one and has the potential for a good action movie. That potential was wasted because they wanted a movie aimed at a kid audience. That is understandable, since many children admired the wrestlers on the show, but there was no need to infantilize the movie so much. The humor and childish comedy in the movie felt forced and took away all the seriousness of the movie by filling it with implausible situations. The movie was not made by an expert director or screenwriter because the movie has no coherent direction and the script is quite bad. Random or meaningless things happen, there is no development in the story, the characters are generic and the protagonists also lack development. There are no good performances because they only hired figures related to the entertainment world. Carlos Kaspar and Maria Fernanda Neil were the only professional actors they hired, but the irony is that they are the worst actors in the entire movie. At least the wrestlers and the hosts of the show are the only ones who act at their best. Carlos Kaspar keeps acting like a generic villain who, instead of being funny, is rather cringy. If they had chosen a better director, the movie would have gone down a better path. But it seems that in Argentina there are very few people who know how to make movies. This was the only movie by director Juan Iribas and it is good that he has not directed more movies because he is seriously a bad director.
100% Lucha was a good television show and did not need a movie. So making this movie was a mistake and trying to make movies of this nature with inexperienced people shows why Argentine cinema is inferior to Hollywood cinema. 100% Lucha, La Película is ultimately a mediocre action movie that offers good action scenes and funny moments, but that did not do honor to the television show and its wrestlers due to a bad director and a terrible script. My final rating for this movie is 5/10.
