Rating: 1.5 Stars
The following review contains spoilers.
Overview:
As a child, Diego illegally crossed over the border from Mexico to the U.S. Along the way, he was lead astray from the group by an old man, who told him legends and prophecies of the Aztec gods, then carved a symbol into Diego’s hand before dying himself. A decade later, Diego lives with his friend Zac, a comparative religion student, and is dating Maria, niece of the local Catholic padre. On the way to a Day of the Dead party, Diego blacks out and crashes his car. He comes to in another realm where his heart is carved out by Aztec gods. Awakening in a daze, he makes his way to the Day of the Dead party to find a year has passed and his friends mourn his death.
As Diego wanders the city in confusion, rain falls from a cloudless sky, and some men, including Maria’s uncle, are killed in graphic and ritualistic-seeming ways. The prophecy the old man told him about is coming true, and Diego is meant to be an emissary for the Aztec gods to return and take their revenge on the world. But Diego resists, and his love for Maria, as symbolized by the heart-shaped ring she gave him, keeps him from going over to the darkness. In the end, before the third sacrifice can be made, Diego intervenes and defeats the mysterious old woman (convincingly played by the same actor who was the old man in the desert) behind the killings.
Best Parts:
It’s an interesting premise for this type of superhero movie. I certainly haven’t seen many others with representations of Aztec gods in them.
Though Diego (Wilmer Valderrama) and Maria (Angie Cepeda) give pretty bad performances, their sort of stiff, mannered, soap opera like takes on the material make the more naturalistic performances, like from Joel David Moore, Michael Parks, and Tony Plana, really stand out and seem like a breath of fresh air.
I liked the early scene where Diego tries to wash off his make-up and realizes it’s a part of him now. Given how cheap most of the movie looks, it was a nice effect.
Worst Parts:
The actual plot, meaning the goals of the Aztec gods and how Diego fits into all of it, is nigh incomprehensible. I don’t know if it was the sound mix or what — and I actually bought the DVD of this so it’s no poorly-done cheap copy found on the Internet — but I couldn’t understand anything that was going on whenever the gods or prophecies were involved.
Diego has no personality. Maria also has no personality. Together they are a boring couple and it’s hard to care if they get to be together or not.
For a movie that is less than 90-minutes, it’s very boring. Since it involves a young guy who comes back to life with white face paint on, I’ve seen comparisons to the Crow, but at least the Crow was proactive in his desire to get revenge and generally kill people. El Muerto just wanders around for a long time, until he pretty much stumbles upon the old woman with the special knife getting ready to kill Maria and so he starts fighting with her.
Superhero Movies Ranked 