So it was with great anticipation that I sallied forth to enjoy another round of hopefully absurd carnage with "Machete Kills," a title which I approve of, but really feel should have an exclamation point at the end of it. In particular I was excited to see Charlie Sheen as the POTUS which, even though it's probably about a year too late to jump on the bandwagon it probably started on, is an idea so stupid that it has to be awesome. Remember, before he lost his mind Charlie Sheen was also something called "an actor," and he was pretty good at it. Hell, he's a funny guy. Remember "Hot Shots Part Deux?" That's good stuff
What I ended up getting with "Machete Kills" was something that was comforting like putting on a pair of warm slippers after you come inside from the cold. The same level of not-serious-take is still as loudly present as it was before, if not even more so, and it still features ridiculous levels of blood and guts that would be horrifying were they not so tongue in cheek. Danny Trejo is still the same steel-faced, indestructible superhero whose power is that he's an action movie star and simply cannot be killed. The recognizable cameos are still prevalent and bring a smile to my face. This is a good time, and it felt good.
Spaaaaaace kniiiiiiiiiife!!!
On the other hand, the slippers that we are slipping into have also been chewed up by your puppy. "Machete Kills" is not, and I hate to say this, a very good movie. I don't mean that from a snobby perspective, I mean that from the perspective of how well it does what it's trying to do. It must be said that it's just not as well executed as the original was, so from that perspective it is a let down. Like the puppy it's hard to be too upset at it, since it's so adorable and you knew it didn't mean any harm, but you just can't help but be kind of irritated. And it's not that you're mad. You're just disappointed.
"Those were my best zapatos, cabron."
Here's the thing. "Machete Kills" did one thing wrong that really should not have been an issue, and I would have honestly thought would have been an impossibility before I saw it: It doesn't kill enough. I feel like such a clod saying that, but when you've built a franchise and a character on the sole premise of being a walking death machine who cannot die, than what you do is jam an hour and a half with him killing as many thing as you possibly can. That's what the first one did, and it was amazing.
What you DON'T do is put him in a situation where Danny Trejo spends most of the movie sitting down in chairs or standing around as he has various people talk at him as they brief him on his mission or monologue at him in villainous overtones. The fact that the majority of the time Danny Trejo spends between these little meetings is simply walking around from place to place without much incident besides the occasional badass quip doesn't help.
Unfortunately this is what most of "Machete Kills" ends up being. It's just Machete walking around doing stuff. He's not even doing anything overly violent most of the time. He's not even talking most of the time since everybody else in the film does all the talking for him. That's fine since he's a Mexican of few words, but you get the impression that Danny Trejo may as well have had a camera mounted in his torso and was walking around Hollywood to get everybody's audition tapes as they tried out to be cast in Bond 24.
You know, I can hear her delivering "Why can't you be a good boy and die?" pretty well.
And right there is the best way to describe what "Machete Kills" feels like: It's a Bond movie. Or at least it's a Bond movie if it crossed over with "Dolemite," "Shaft" and something starring Pierre Kirby and then became Mexican. I know that sounds amazing, but when you factor in the plot the closest match for the Bond movie would be "Moonraker."
Speaking of which, the plot this time finds Machete sent on a mission by the POTUS to stop a Mexican drug lord (Demian Bichir) from blowing up Washington D.C. There's a lot of twisting and turning within the plot, far too much so if I'm being totally honest, but eventually this all leads to our real villain, Voz (Mel Gibson), an eccentric billionaire who has been kidnapping hundreds of Mexicans in order to get labor to complete his secret space station, which he and his race of super-people will live on while he wipes the rest of humanity out.
Like I said - Freaking "Moonraker."
Okay, fine. It's "Moonraker" with Mexicans. I can deal with that. At least Roger Moore isn't here, although that would be kind of awesome. The real issue though is that there's simply not enough action going on in between everything, and the boredom starts kicking in pretty quickly once it become clear that "Machete Kills" is trying to be something other than a shooting gallery. Normally I'd appalled a film for having a plot, but a movie like "Machete Kills" should only have exposition while it runs as fast as it can towards the next bloodbath. When they slow it down with too much plot it only makes it so that the absurdity, ie - the reason we're here, is dialed down a bit. They needed to go all out with this movie, and they really didn't. It pulled back from the peaks of zany that "Machete" reached.
And that's too bad because the violence that is there, inexcusable prevalence of CGI gore aside, is really good. There are some truly cringe-worthy moments here that are so insane that you can't help but laugh and slap your knees at the madness of it all. And anyone who doesn't get the joke of the over-the-top nature of it, or decries it as nothing but a pile of entrails with no point (as I read other reviewers mention to my bewilderment) is simply not speaking the same language. Come on, this is a movie that features a gun that literally turns people inside out. There is no way anyone with a brain-stem can't realize that it is meant to be laughed at. Don't judge from the same perspective as "Pulp Fiction." This is a comedy, for crying out loud. And it does that part well.
All that aside, the cast does make for an entertaining sit. It's like a revolving door of actors who grace the film with their presence before moving on. Mel Gibson threatens to steal the show as the "Star Wars" obsessed precogniscent villain, and plays the role with such glee and fun that it's a wonder he's not played bad guys more often. (Hello, "Expendables 3" ^_^) However my particular favorite was La Camaleón, a disguise shifting assassin played in turn by Walter Goggins, Cuba Gooding Jr., Lady Gaga and Antonio Banderas. That character was just too cool. And any movie that puts a bullet in Jessica Alba's dome in the first five minutes is doing something right.
That's not to mention President Sheen slamming back whiskeys and dropping profanity laced tirades like he's a hard-boiled police sergeant in a film noire. It's pretty amazing.
So yeah, it's not a good as "Machete." But it wasn't bad, I guess. I was a good time. Now we can only hope that they go ahead and fulfill their promise with that trailer and tease of a non-ending for "Machete Kills Again...In Space." Honestly, showing the trailer for that at the beginning of "Machete Kills" was probably the worst thing they could have done. That movie looked way better. THAT'S the level of ridiculousness we wanted! Damn it, why couldn't they have skipped this one and gone right to that?
You know, the trailer is making me want to watch it again, though.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "Machete Kills" is an okay movie if you liked the first one. It's not nearly as good because it's trying to have too much plot, which bogs the pace and acts of carnage down to unacceptable levels. The bits that are in there that are good are great, but you've got to slog through too much not-as-awesome to get there. The cast makes it worth watching, though.
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