Nachos With Extra Cheese

I was walking through the Wheaton mall the other day on my way to Target when I noticed an obscene number of obscenely large posters of Jack Black in a somewhat obscene spandex outfit shilling for a new movie called Nacho Libre. Having not seen a trailer on TV yet and not being a huge fan of Jack Black, I was curious, but let's just say I wasn't running out to check my local theater times quite yet.

Anyway, I have since checked out the trailer and was subsequently compelled to review it. I know this may be shock to people...but I like cheesy movies. Additionally, thanks to my good friend John Terp, I have an excessive amount of knowledge about Mexican wrestling that I need to share. Lastly, even though this movie appears to be ridiculous, it comes with a decent comedy pedigree worthy of some curiosity at the very least.

Jared Hess, writer/director of Napoleon Dynamite, directs what is sure to be a surreal and awkward movie about Nacho Libre, a soon-to-be famous Mexican wrestler. Jack Black plays said wrestler. From the trailer, he follows his dreams of becoming a famous wrestler by donning spandex, teaming up with the skinniest Mexican guy EVER, and entering himself in back-alley wrestling competitions, all in the hope of one day being a superstar wrestler like the Man in the Golden Mask, or as the Altavista Babel Fish program calls him "El Hombre con la Máscara de Oro" (not quite the funny translation I had hoped for, but I'll take it).

Nacho gets booed by old ladies and appears to get his ass kicked, and the resulting humiliation makes him give up his dream and join a monastery. There, he befriends the poor man's Penelope Cruz, they share some toast, and (if my movie clairvoyance serves me right) his new friend convinces him to follow his dreams all the way to the top, baby. Since Hess' last flick featured an uber-triumphant moment for the world's Ultimate Nerd, my guess is that Nacho Libre may get to battle "El Hombre con la Máscara de Oro" successfully as well. Just a hunch.

Will this movie be "good?" Questionable...it seems as though this film is going to follow the time-honored "underdog makes good" storyline. When you think about it, Napoleon Dynamite did too, but in a pretty meandering, interesting, unexpected way. Expect a lot of ND fanboys to love this and a lot of Indie/Arthouse movie fanboys to decry it as an outrage (because it's no longer underground, man). Whatever. I kinda like it when the underdog wins. So sue me.

Now for the part of my review in which I lay some Old School Mexican wrestling knowledge on you... The man in the golden mask is clearly modeled after El Santo, arguably the most famous and beloved wrestler in Mexico's illustrious wrestling history. Santo became a movie star in the 1960's through a number of movies in which he battled villainous foes in and out of the ring, including a mummy, Frankenstein's daughter, Dracula and a werewolf among others. I have never seen these movies...but my friend John Terp has. In fact, he's regaled me with minute-by-minute reviews of Santo vs. just about every foe he's ever battled. In discussing Santo vs. The Vampire Women, John had this to say: "Santo holds down 2 full time jobs -- he's on 24 hour call as a crime fighter and he's a professional wrestler. One of the most hilarious moments in "Santo vs. the Vampire Women" occurs when Santo has to leave the professor's daughter he is protecting to fight in a wrestling match. The vampire women want to capture the professor's daughter and initiate her into their ranks. Santo is all that stands in between the helpless girl and the vampire women -- and he leaves her because he has to show up for work at his 2nd job! Talk about just getting by. In case you were wondering,The vampire women abduct the professor's daughter."

In some ways, I think Hess picked a perfect subject for his Napoleon Dynamite follow-up. To quote John, a true Santo fan: "My favorite aspect of Santo is that he's truly a third world superhero -- he's got no superpowers -- just a silver alpha romeo convertable and the mask."