2463. Yucatán (2018)

Starring: Luis Tosar, Rodrigo De la Serna, Joan Pera

Director: Daniel Monzón

Running Time: 129 mins

Yucatán is a Spanish film about a group of swindlers who board a cruise with the intention of scamming an elderly lottery winner of his fortune, but soon find themselves coming up against a number of obstacles that send the plan into total chaos.

It may masquerade as an energetic, bubbly comedy, but Yucatán is actually a really boring, and pretty exhausting, watch from beginning to end. With a dull, predictable and often mean-spirited story, there’s little to prove genuinely entertaining, and while it works well to never really get on your nerves, there’s still nowhere near enough to grab you at any point, not to mention the terrible lack of strong comedy.

But before all that, let’s quickly look at the bright side, with the fact that Yucatán does at least have a strong energy to it throughout. It may not be the most entertaining watch, but it’s bright, fairly rapid-paced film that does occasionally breathe some much-needed life into scenes throughout, even if it doesn’t quite compensate for the predictable story and overlong runtime.

Also, while I can’t confess to having particularly liked the plot, it’s not really all that annoying. Some of its intentions come of as a little mean-spirited, but the scamming element is generally juxtaposed with a little bit of slapstick comeuppance, meaning that, while it’s not a delightful watch, the film at least isn’t a morally reprehensible one.

With all that said, I was still bored out of my mind with Yucatán, principally because its story has next to no ingenuity or development throughout. With the exception of the inevitable epiphany of conscience for a number of the main characters, there’s no character depth or intrigue at any point, but rather a stream of random botched scam attempts interspersed with gags that may have sounded funny in the pitch, but don’t work at all well on screen.

So, for a light, bubbly comedy, I was hugely disappointed at just how unfunny this film was. I didn’t laugh once, and while its energy and pace occasionally lifts it a little, it’s nowhere near enough to make for an enjoyable watch, something that worsens the boredom of the predictable and shallow story, and plays into the exhuasting nature of the movie’s 130 minute runtime.

Why the film is that long, I’ll never know, because it’s a story that can be told in the space of five minutes, masquerading as a light comedy that should only really last about 90 minutes. Taking forty minutes out wouldn’t have hurt what little story there is at all, but it could have worked to make the film a little easier-going, in tune with its comedic atmosphere.

Overall, I really wasn’t all that impressed with Yucatán. A dull, predictable and rather exhausting watch throughout, it fails to grab you or even make you laugh at any point, instead pushing forward with a shallow and simply tedious story over the course of an overlong runtime, and that’s why I’m giving it a 5.8.