No matter how your stomach churns over the new Casa Bonita, there’s no arguing that a new documentary recounting the rise, fall and miraculous revival of the iconic Lakewood theme-park restaurant is a five-course movie meal.

“¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!,” now available for streaming on Paramount Plus, is a popcorn-munching good time for locals and outsiders alike. But especially for locals, who are treated to a buffet of Denver history and news clips from recognized metro TV personalities like Kyle Clark, Kim Christiansen and more.

This endlessly enlightening documentary opens with cell-phone video from 2012 showing Colorado-born “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone taking the cast of the very first national touring production of “The Book of Mormon” (which was launching in Denver at the time) to Casa Bonita. Parker and Stone wanted to show them the restaurant that inspired the classic 2003 episode of “South Park” that introduced the world to “the Disneyland of Mexican restaurants” and turned it, for a time, into an international tourist destination.

Standing in the parking lot, Parker says into a random video camera that his greatest childhood dream was to one day buy Casa Bonita.

Nine years later, he did. Little did any of us know that behind the scenes, Parker’s childhood obsession was crumbling from decades of neglect.

If you don’t yet know the inside story, you might assume this MTV-produced doc would be nothing more than a self-congratulatory pat on the back to Parker and Stone for rescuing a small piece of rapidly disappearing Old Denver. (Whether it should have been rescued remains another valid question entirely.)

This film is so much more than that. It’s a Quixotic hero’s journey tracing Parker’s initial childlike giddiness through his descent into near Col. Kurtz-level madness as the reopening budget explodes from $3 million to $40 million. As the opening date barrels near and Parker’s standards become all the more uncompromising, the film becomes a testament to artistic exactitude, even as it nearly breaks everyone around him. It’s an ode to the enduring value of nostalgia. It’s about what price you will pay to bring joy to children. (Again: $40 million.)

But what a hilarious and horrifying ride getting there.

Parker and Stone bought Casa Bonita out of bankruptcy “as is” in 2021 for $3.1 million. It was essentially an impulse buy, with no property inspections or economic foresight of any kind. It was only after the sale that the pair learned they had bought not just a money pit. They bought what might have qualified as a toxic Superfund site.

COVID took a lot of lives. But by closing down Casa Bonita in 2020, COVID may have saved a few lives. Not even joking.

This film shows the initial teardown that reveals peeling paint, corroded pipes, an oozing HVAC system and much worse.

Those vaunted cliff divers who have entertained generations of visitors? Wait till you see the tiny hole they had to crawl through to get back up. “We call this the Tiki Room,” one employee says of the divers’ moldy backstage area. “You should call it the Death Room,” says Parker’s project manager. When he sees the state of the building’s air ducts, he says: “This is the most dangerous thing I have seen in my whole life.” We can see the reality start to sink in on Parker’s bewildered face in real time.

“We’ve inherited a building that is (bleeped),” he says. A new HVAC system? $4 million. A new kitchen? $2 million. For starters. The signature entrance fountain? Unsalvageable.

The film audience knows the eventual happy ending, of course, but when you see up close what it actually took to get there, you wonder why Parker didn’t just bail early on when his loss would have been “only” $10 million.

“Any savvy businessperson would say, ‘Get out now,’” Parker says. Luckily for fans of Casa Bonita, Parker is not a savvy businessperson.

Instead, he responds: “I guess I better start making some new TV shows” (to raise more capital).

Still, locals who have been breathing in that poisoned air and drinking water from those corroded pipes for God knows how many years might rightly sit up and ask how this restaurant was allowed to remain open for all the years it must have taken for it to become so decrepit.

You can’t help but wonder whether Casa Bonita was subjected to health inspections by officials from Lakewood or Jefferson County in the later years. Or was the revenue the restaurant was generating for the county more important than the wellness of the patrons eating there? One can see why inspectors probably weren’t keen on investigating too terribly deeply.

In a column here a few weeks ago, I raised an honest and searching question of readers who were happy to recently join a cue 50,000 deep for the chance to score an eventual reservation at Casa Bonita: “Why?”

I didn’t get it, especially because, we were told, great pains were being taken to make the new Casa Bonita look and feel pretty much like the old Casa Bonita. Then why bother? I wondered.

After seeing the documentary, I still have no driving urge to revisit Casa Bonita. But I do have a far greater appreciation for the work, money and inspiring foolhardiness it took to make it happen.

It turns out the new Casa Bonita does look a lot like the old Casa Bonita. But what’s less evident to the naked eye is Parker’s level of involvement in every detail, especially the entertainment itself. Simply put, the shlock is gone. Parker wrote every word of the new puppet show to “South Park” standards. He wrote the dialogue spoken by the talking skeletons and other characters.

As someone who has long covered the performing arts in Denver, I loved seeing the film introduce Denver’s Amber Blais, who has built the entertainment program at Casa Bonita from the ground up – starting with two employees and growing that to more than 100. In the film, as delays cause the restaurant to put dozens of just-hired employees on hold, we see Blais soldier on, developing storylines not only for the cliff divers but the many other performing characters who make Casa Bonita a truly immersive and high-quality entertainment experience.

Plot twist: Days before opening, just as Blais tries to lock down the cliff divers’ routines, Parker has a last-minute creative epiphany to re-theme everything at Casa Bonita through a 1974 lens (same as its opening year). The tension leaps through the screen as everyone, including Blais, is forced to trash months of preparations to accommodate this new creative direction.

Talk about drama.

Days after watching “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!,” I found myself ruminating on what I least expected from this documentary, which turns out to be a lush character study of one unusual man who was determined to use his privilege and wealth for both selfish and altruistic reasons.

It’s utterly fascinating to watch Parker’s mind at work as the filmmakers follow him on a trip to Oaxaca — not in search of authenticity but rather looking for fun things to take back. Parker becomes inspired by Elvis Presley’s 1963 album “Fun in Acapulco,” for example. Just as he does with “South Park,” Parker tees up the obvious question of cultural appropriation over these two white, rich suburban Coloradans running a Mexican restaurant and, yes — makes you laugh at it. “Casa Bonita is about super-white dudes singing Mexican songs,” he admits with a laugh.

Quintessential “South Park.”

“¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” ultimately delivers a character arc worthy of any great feature film, finally landing on a dad whose true accomplishment here is simply creating a fun experience for his daughter and other wide-eyed kids.

“Trey was fueled by a Wonka-like passion to bring back the Casa Bonita of his youth,” director Arthur Bradford said in a statement.

If you love stories, it doesn’t get much better than that.

John Moore is a Denver-based arts journalist. Email him at john.moore@gazettedev.gazette.com