This has like a mix of E. T. and Water Horse but mostly on the premise not much on the heart. It was a bit too short so everything went by quickly so you didn't get to really bond with the whole child meets monster and become friends things. I was like "That was it?"
The Chupa is cute even with the feral cat hyena like design. They met roughly in the middle of the film so really there's not enough time to do much else. I think there was a bit too much of the bad guy sequences, which didn't really need to be that long since they didn't add to anything. They're just typical greedy villains so each screen time they got there wasn't anything new to add other than "We need to find Chupacabra". Hollow villains basically.
The movie's message is meant to be conveying: (As said by Cuarón, the "core message of" Chupa is "the importance of family, particularly in a character who was looking for his roots."). They did insert the characters being together but to me it felt lacking since they didn't dive deeper on what this child supposedly is looking to connect to his roots so he's not really opening up. Then when the main family moment happened it was fast then the next scene it was back to the bad guy sequence up to climax. So even with the usual child and monster friend goodbye scene it didn't really feel sorrowful because you didn't really see them bond together. They just poof close buds.
I would've rated this 5.5 but opted for 5. Chupa being cute isn't enough for me. They had a good message but they let that plot go. Where was the actual connection to his roots? The kids might like it because again, cute cuddly monster. But yeah the show feels dated with the acting and the awkward sequences.
