Metacritic-Rezensionen

You’re really going for Rodriguez’s retrohappy splatter: Intestines tangle in helicopter rotors, heads pop in spring-loaded decapitations, and there’s even a new fake trailer up top. Little is believable, and that’s exactly as it should be.

Kills tops the 2010 original by not giving a mierda about logic or character.

More focused and less preachy than its exploitation-riffing predecessor, the comparably shoddy Machete Kills nonetheless peters out in the homestretch (and, for some, surely sooner).

The films that Robert Rodriguez emulates here are known for similar unexpected narrative turns, but the crucial value that he misses is their actual cheapness.

As violent as its predecessor yet noticeably duller and less outrageous, Machete Kills is dragged to the finish line entirely by its director’s madcap energy and an absurd cast of major stars in strange cameos.

Violent, silly, embarrassing, clumsy, confusing, juvenile, occasionally offensive, occasionally a little bit fun.

Like a meal made entirely of chillies, Machete Mk II is spicy to start with, then unpleasant, then numbing - before it all starts to repeat.

Sadly, much as we want to relish the shameless parade of cartoon violence, while indulging the equally shameless cavalcade of adolescent sexism, the soggy plotting and slack comic timing are downers.

The cinematic axiom of diminishing returns appears to be catching up with Robert Rodriguez’s Machete franchise in only the second installment, as the series’ engagingly lowbrow concept gets overwhelmed by episodic plotting and uninspired, rote performances.

The carnage (with its computer-­generated splatter) is meant to be campy fun, but it’s so offhand that there’s less suspense than in an Austin Powers movie.