Monday, April 16, 2018

Fat Drunken non-Teenage Ninja Turtles to the rescue.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 27 years of life is that Mexicans really love their beer. Beer is like the life of the party at every wedding, children’s birthday party, baptism celebration & quinceañeras I’ve been to. Your dad drinks beer, your uncles drinks beer, your neighbors drink beer and their fathers’ fathers did as well. Good lord knows that beer is quite the elixir in Mexican culture. Sometimes I think it’s a bad thing, but overall it enriches the beloved culture—particularly with the brands from Mexico. In Mexico, a “caguama” is a turtle, but most of the time it means a fat 32 oz bottle of beer. You’d think maybe 1 or 2 is enough for the average man, but no, I’ve seen plenty of my dad’s friends in Mexico down at least 10 caguamas before sunset. That’s not a joke either.

Caguamas being very popular & important with Mexicans; inspired some filmmakers to make a corny comedy about this turtle-shaped bottle and parody Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the same damn time.

In Las Caguamas Ninjas, 3 old fat dudes (Pedro Weber "Chatnuga", Guillermo Rivas, Ernesto Yañez) dress up like Ninja Turtles to defend their beloved Carta Blanca beer. They also work at a Carta Blanca brewery. Naturally. Some local gangsters decide to take over the beer market in town by selling imported beer instead of the domestic stuff, thus they force local shopkeepers to sell imported only. So then, some business owners start selling imported beer and that is a big no-no for the Caguamas Ninjas and their short brewery boss (Gaston Padilla). They must save Mexican beer before it is taken over by lame imported beer!

Oh dear lord, was this movie bad. So far one of the worst movies I’ve watched this year, too. Still, I can’t put Las Caguamas Ninjas completely down considering the set of cast members that I really like star in this movie. I also loved the horrid Ninja Turtle costumes and their use of brooms instead of ninja weapons. Their “Cheers” beer t-shirts were also charming. Their fat beer guts also give their aesthetic a spark of charm as well. I also love the fight scene between our heroes and the villains. That scene had me in awe & frustration.

I think drinking 10, 11 or 13 caguamas will probably help this movie become fully entertaining and understandable. One thing is for sure, I paid a drunken price for this movie. Regrets? Yes. A drunken regret? Not at all.