This is going to be the start of a new series of articles I’m going to be writing once every two months. The premise is this: Go to the dollar store, find a movie in the big bin, watch it, be disgusted, write a review. 

For my first review I chose a movie called Gaturro: America’s Most Wanted, made by the same people that produced the Gummy Bear song. The movie is not as bad as one would think at first glance, but it is certainly not good either. Firstly, it’s a clear ripoff of Garfield. From the animation style of the characters to the characters themselves it’s obvious that the creator of Gaturro was trying to imitate Garfield by creating another orange and yellow tabby cat to be the egocentric star of the show. The lack of originality is something that this studio reflects often in their films, as most of them are often screen adaptations of something that started in another medium. 

Nonetheless, for its budget and source material, Gaturro makes do with what it can. It relies HEAVILY on slapstick humor and jokes that are in your face. The overuse of this humor only cracked a smile from me when I was not supposed to laugh, with one joke sticking, when this crazy cat with a comically long neck, Gatulongo, just stares at Gaturro and his other friends and goes: “acting.” Then they stare at him for twenty actual seconds in silence until he says something else. It was so out of place from the rest of the film’s humor and was probably its only bright spot. 

The plot of this movie doesn’t make much sense either. Gaturro wants to win over the heart of this girl, Agatha, who has done nothing but treat him like crap for his entire life. Despite the constant degrading and the embarrassment from the hands of Agatha, he keeps trying, and eventually succeeds by becoming a famous television star to impress her. Gaturro gets the girl and thwarts the plan of his nemesis, Max, from marrying Agatha. Since this movie is made in Argentina, a majority Catholic country, marriage is seen as a lifelong bond, something you can’t get out of. It’s concerning and puzzling to teach this to kids from an early age but it’s certainly not my place to tell a culture how to conduct its business. 

Even though the movie is terrible, you have to remember that the filmmakers are on a low budget, it’s made for kids, and it didn’t feel like they had much creative freedom. This was quietly reflected by the two film producer characters, as they were greedy beyond any reasonable bounds to an extent where it felt like the makers had a personal vendetta against the film industry and despised it. 

I would not watch Gaturro again. The plot is lousy, the characters are uninspiring, the acting is terrible, the jokes are almost all misses and the animation is subpar. But for a dollar, the entertainment value of this terrible movie was certainly worth it. I would encourage all youngsters to go out and buy funny movies from the dollar store and watch them with their friends, it’s certainly an experience you can’t replicate with something like Netflix, and something you should try before you die, or sometime before 40.