Los Pulentos: La Película

Los Pulentos: La Película
This is what happens when you improve the animation by cutting down on the writers' salary.
Genre: Animation Starring: Vanessa Silva Ximena Marchant Rene Pinochet Rodrigo Vicens Eduardo Valenzuela Photography: Color Release date: December 27, 2007 Runtime: 75 minutes Country: Chile

Los Pulentos: La Pelicula (Pulentos: The Movie) is a Chilean animated movie based on the popular CGI animated show Pulentos.

Plot

Pulentos, a hip-hop band comprised of Benzo, Nea, Barry, Walala, Ramón, their dog Jorge and their "mouse" Tom York, get invited to Miami as nomineés of the Drammy's to compete for the title of the World's Best Band.

Why It's Not Pulento

1. The entirety of the Pulentos' band members have been severely flanderized to their only defining traits making them less likeable than on the show. A good example of this is Barry, as he is seen eating in almost all scenes he appears in, including the movie's poster. Also Ramón, that refuses to do anything at all!
2. The animation and visuals, while a step up from the show's very low quality animation (even for the time), looks very saturated and washed out at the same time, and the characters mouths don't sync up to what they're saying.
3. Childish, drugged and out of place plot (for the franchise's standards) with the villain making a deal with the devil and that somehow ends in some magical yogurt-filled lollipops that hypnotize children. We're not making that up.
4. Poor music, even when most of the songs were already made.
   • The band's song "Piantes" (arguably their most popular song) is butchered with lackluster instrumentation, awkward singing and a pointless guest appearance of real-life Mexican band Plastilina Mosh.
   • The only original song "Fama" plays at the credits of the movie and it is disappointingly average.
5. Blatant product placement. In almost every scene, you can see advertisements for various products to the point of making product mascots appear and disappear with no explanation at all, or stopping the flow of the movie by having the entire band casually going to change their clothes at one of the sponsored clothing stores.
6. The names of the competing bands of Pulentos are all slang words from their respective countries. While this is not a bad idea, it is offensive as they are actually considered swear words outside of Chile.
7. The movie can get very mean-spirited at times, for example: The receptionist of the hotel gives Los Pulentos the worst rooms in the hotel, because Los Pinches are going to get the penthouse and upper five rooms only for them (for no reason at all). That's like saying: "We invited you, but we're going to treat you like garbage to make it clear that you won't win!".
8. Madame Lydia almost looks like a rip-off off Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus. It's because of Lydia's orange hair and her hairstyle that looks similar to Ms. Frizzle's. Speaking of her, she is the stereotypical "I want to rule the world because I'm evil!" villain, and her plan doesn't make any sense either, how is hypnotizing kids so that they want to become famous related to ruling the world?
9. Pathetically, the entire band just failed to stop Madame Lydia's plan, as all of the members except Nea (and barely useful Jorge and Tom York) got brainwashed, and Nea doesn't try to save them. However, the character I Loveny pops out of practically nowhere to help Nea get the contracts back, making her a poorly written plot-device.
10. Gross out scenes: One where Tom York and Jorge look inside a tube that contains a bacterium named "El bichito de la fama" (The germ of fame) and the camera zooms in to show the bacterium swimming inside the tube. And another in which Barry farts inside the plane after saying that he has an "escape valve" too.
11. Major plotholes:
    • Why wasn't I Loveny brainwashed like the other henchmen of Madame Lydia if she signed the same contract? Also, if she doesn't know how to read and write, how did she keep her career as a famous singer? Another example is when I Loveny betrays Madame Lydia to help Nea defeat her, which causes the others henchmen want to bring her to Madame Lydia, but later she registers with her own name in order to enter Madame Lydia's Manor, and they let her enter with no issues at all.
    • When Nea burns all of the contracts, everybody spits out the lollipops that contained the germ of fame. However, this doesn't make sense, as the germ makes kids want to become famous, it doesn't brainwash them as they are not under the contracts.
    • It is never explained why Madame Lydia chose Pulentos to make her plan work out, considering that her plan was to make Pulentos help promote the modified lollipops due to their popularity. The thing is, they weren't popular at all! And it was already established that Pinches was the more popular band and she could have just gone with them instead.
12. There is a scene in which Jorge and Tom York are kidnapped and sent to "Brígidostan" (similar to Pakistán) and they arrive there with bags on their heads and are nearly shot to death soon after. You know, for kids!
13. Flawed Morals:
    • Nea doesn't believe I Loveny when she tells her that Madame Lydia wants to dominate the world, but she easily believed her when she talked about her deal with the devil.
14. Idiot move: Madame Lydia tries to put out a fire using her dress and she burns to death on-screen, however, its discovered that she survived, and she tries to kill Los Pulentos with a falling reflector, but it falls on her instead, killing her and opening a gate to hell (seriously). And funnily enough, Pulentos look concerned for 3 seconds then keep singing as if nothing has happened.
15. There is a post-credit scene where it shows Madame Lydia in hell about to suffer a punishment from the Devil after failing him, which is not really worth it.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The animation and visuals as previously mentioned (in WIS#2), despite not looking very good themselves, are still an improvement over those of the show.
2. Some scenes do look decent visually, such as the scene with the kids spitting out the lollipops while cheering at the concert.
3. The voice acting is solid, and Jorge's new voice actor sounds a lot better than the older voice.
4. The remix of the song "Pulentos" at the end of the movie is well made and catchy.
5. Some scenes can be funny to watch.
6. Even if the series is not a big deal, at least it feels like it's better than its own movie.

Trivia

• Vanessa Silva, one of the voice actors of the film, led the cast of the 2020 animated film, Nahuel and the Magic Book to voicing some characters like Consuelo, Sra Hilda, Raiquen, and Huenchur.
• 2 years after this movie's release, Pulentos recieved a spin-off show titled "Walala", which was no better and ended the franchise for good on a sour note.

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