Machete Kills

Let me start off by saying love love love the first Machete. I can watch it anytime... This one, not so much. Robert Rodriquez swung for the fences with this one and it missed. Some people will never ever say anything bad about the guy and some will genuinely like it, but to be honest.. it just didn't have that X factor the first Machete did. This time around Machete is more like a super hero. He is sent on a mission to Mexico by the President (excellent choice of casting Charlie Sheen, using his birth name of Carlos Esteves). But other than that, (and of course Danny Trejo and Michelle Rodriquez), the rest of the cast just didn't fit. The schizo Mexican revolutionary didn't fit, Cuba was completely out of place, wasn't really feeling Lady Gaga or Amber Heard (even though she is gorgeous) and the gorgeous Sophia Vegara was just a little too manic. But it really wasn't that.. the film just was kind of flat, even the action scenes weren't clicking. Maybe because they gave away too much in the previews. Maybe its because they made Machete inhuman.. All I know is that when I was in the theater, 3 people around me fell asleep and 4 people walked out a hour after the film started... AND it wasn't that many people in the theater. Gosh I wanted it to be so much better.. This is a rental, at best

The humor is subtle and much of it is too subtle for the average viewer as I see from the posts below. If one views it as a "Kill Bill" kind of silliness that looks at the Mexican/Us border, then one may enjoy it.

The movie is not self-indulgent, rather it takes common stereotypes and puts them into funny situations. It has dark humor at times and makes no apologies for making fun of everything. It takes on many issues in a light-hearted way, but for some reason, it is not listed as a comedy. It, however, is a comedy.

The hero is a clever native American which is it's twist. The movie's plot is not predictable and it is filled with guns and shoot ups. It is a modern comedy that pokes fun at US politics and all its insincerity.

Watch it. Do not take it seriously as an action flick and allow it to be the comedy that it is.

I am a fan of the first one, I am a fan of Grindhouse and I love over the top movies. Going in to this I knew that it was going to be bloody, cheesy and awesome. It surprised me that this did not do as well as the first one or even close to it. The original was a tad more serious and had some really badass parts while this one was just non stop cheesy and Grindhouse-y.

If you saw the first one, you pretty much know what to expect and what the basic concept is. Just times that times ten and you have Machete Kills. It is just a movie where you sit and don't think about it. Let it all happen and enjoy it. That is, of course, you like action movies where the hero chops every bad guy up and Sofia Vergara with her bra machine gun.

I wonder what drugs Rodriguez was on when he wrote this movie but he must have been under the influence of something since it is even more weird and insanely violent than his usual concoctions. What is worse it that it really is somewhat incoherent, like ideas for scenes was just strung together with no real concern for the overall picture.

I did like the movie as a two-hour distraction from reality and I had quite a few laughs at the ludicrously violent scenes. Unfortunately some of them made me squirm in my seat because the where not really funny-violent but just silly-violent.

Charlie Sheen as a president was a real really poor choice of actor. Mel Gibson as Voz was better and I have to confess that I do like Michelle Rodriguez. Lady Gaga? Well, "bof" as the French say.

Machete himself, which to me was one of the main reasons for watching the movie, was also a bit of a disappointment. He walked through the movie like he was just bored being on the set. There was never any real spark.

At the end of the movie I have to say that I felt a little disappointed. As I wrote, I did like it but it never reached the levels of enjoyment that I hoped for.

First came "Grindhouse" (2007), a critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful ode to exploitation films of the 1970's & 1980's. Then came "Machete" (2010), an unapologetically violent spin off adapted by popular demand from one of the fake trailers that accompanied "Grindhouse".

Unlike "Grindhouse", "Machete" was a commercial success, making 2 1/2 times its money back in domestic grosses alone. Inevitably, there would be a sequel. Because of how much I enjoyed "Machete", I was looking forward to "Machete Kills" (2013).

Unfortunately, while the movie's predecessors were aware that they were both parodying and paying tribute to low budget schlock flicks, "Machete Kills" somehow forgets that fact. The over-the-top violence and sex is still there, but something still did not feel right as I was watching this film.

The movie starts out right as you get an allegedly fake trailer for "Machete Kills Again . . . In Space". In this "preview" (which may or may not actually get made in the near future), the film is grainy, scientifically unrealistic, and primarily fun to watch.

Then the movie begins, and the film is as clear as crystal, the first indication that the director, Robert Rodriguez, somehow forgot what he was parodying. Based on the casting of supporting characters, Rodriguez may have also intended "Machete Kills" more as a second chance for once-prominent actors with now-notorious reputations than a tongue-in-cheek tribute to his love for fun, low-budget cinema.

The original "Machete" was no masterpiece, but it was enjoyable to watch because Danny Trejo played an appealing bad-ass, and the narrative was solid. In "Machete Kills", Danny Trejo somehow doesn't seem to be into the character he made his own, keeping the same inexpressive face throughout as if he is already bored with playing the character.

The story in this movie is also too simplified and hackneyed to accommodate as many supporting characters as it does. There's a terrorist who is about to launch a nuclear missile from Mexico to Washington, D.C., and is one of those villains who doesn't know what he wants to do with the world once he takes it over.

While Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, and others from the original movie make welcome returns to this sequel, so many characters are added to this story that their presence actually makes the story more confusing. There's a Miss Texas beauty pageant contestant (Amber Heard) who serves as both a femme fatale and almost an Agent Q to Machete, a brothel owner (Sofia Vergara) with an uninspired bra gun which has been done in countless movies and TV shows before, and a lone assassin who assumes many identities (including Lady Gaga) who wants to kill Machete for reasons the film doesn't seem to explain.

If you're going to accommodate that many characters, write a story where every character has more of a useful goal than "Kill the hero", or even "Make a clever cameo". While I thought it was clever to have Charlie Sheen be credited as Carlos Estevez (his birth name) in the beginning sequence, he served no purpose playing the President of the United States.

It's as if the screenwriters just said, "Hey, you know what would be funny? Let's have a formerly legitimate actor whose life is a train wreck play the President!" Sure, Sheen smokes, womanizes, and swears in his role, but those actions alone don't elicit more than a chuckle.

On the other hand, I bought into Mel Gibson playing Voz, the villainous operator of a weapons manufacturer who made the nuclear missile. Does Gibson's presence here show how fall the former A-lister has fallen? Maybe, but he still sold every line he spoke, and still showed his good acting days are not behind him.

As for the gratuitous violence, I was hoping for more irony in what I was watching. Machete doesn't seem to have more creative ways to use a large knife beside slashing it from right to left. Plus, any creative ways a nemesis dies seems to be ripped right from "The Itchy & Scratchy Show" cartoon on "The Simpsons".

If Robert Rodriguez decides to go ahead and make "Machete Kills Again . . . In Space", he needs to make sure there's enough room in the story for any celebrities whose careers he wants to revitalize. Plus, he needs to embrace the graininess of fun B-movies, and remember that even schlock fails without a coherent story.

Probably foremost, he also needs to make sure Danny Trejo actually wants to reprise his role, because you got no indication of that desire here. Or, even better, give Michelle Rodriguez her own spin off as Luz, the Mexican revolutionary. Unlike Trejo, she actually seemed like she wanted to be there.