Machete Kills (2013)

I was a huge fan of Robert Rodriguez's "Machete" - a tour de force of exploding heads and grindhouse sleaze which featured enough crazy cameos of actors you can't believe are actually in it and enough catastrophic levels of ridiculous violence that it was impossible for me to not be entertained beyond what one would normally imagine to be possible. Yeah it was stupid, yeah it was so over-the-top that it curved around to be subterranean and yeah it was basically a live-action cartoon, but dammit there was a scene with Danny Trejo cutting a dude's stomach open, ripping out his intestines and using them to repel down a wall. Are you not entertained?

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.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

It's at this point that I wonder if I'm the right person to be writing about the Marvel movies. True, it's not like I was assigned this or anything, but you know what I mean. After Phase 1 of Marvel's plan reached its conclusion with "The Avengers," and out of the 6 films in that series, I was blown away by a grand total of 1 of them, it started becoming clear that perhaps I'm just not a Marvel guy. I just don't get the rabid, slavering praise they usually receive.

Maybe I need to read the comics to truly "get it," but I've never been a comic book fan. I just watch the movies and hope that there won't be too much stuff that flies over my head. This usually doesn't work out. I just assume every time the audience I'm seeing it with freaks out and applauds over a character appearing that they're someone important. This may hinder me from getting the same level of enjoyment from the film that they do, but at least I'm not subject to the same insane nerd rage they have whenever they see the next great "ultimate betrayal."

I'm sure I'd feel the same way about Deadpool, friend, but fortunately I don't even know who that is.

With "Iron Man 3" I was excepting to have a really good time. Hopefully. However there was a bit of apprehension on my part, considering that even though I love Robert Downey Jr., the character of Tony Stark has been steadily sliding down the scale towards irreverent, obnoxious comic relief. Yes, I know he's always been a snarky smart-ass but Joss Whedon took him so far in that direction in "The Avengers" that he should have just dressed like Oscar Wilde and had a rimshot after every line.

Actually, "The Importance of Being Ernest" would have been way better with robots.

I was very relived to find that "Iron Man 3" did indeed drop pretty much all of the camera mugging that Tony Stark had been doing in his last few outings, and instead had him act like a human being who doesn't have something witty to say after every single thing that's said. Now it's only about 50%, which means it's still a lot, but coming from 98% in "The Avengers" it seems almost dour.

Unfortunately this is one of those instances where I have to once again be a big buzzkill and go against the common consensus when it comes to the Marvel franchise. Like most of the rest of the films before it, there isn't too much glowing praise I can give "Iron Man 3" because it was just okay. It wasn't bad, by any means. This is a well directed, well acted film that has a great look and style to it. Hell, it's by Shane Black, who is a director I really like. The craftsmanship on display is admirable. I can not take that away.

But at the same time I'm having trouble remembering much about it. Some of that has to do with the fact that I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of these characters, which made the story kind of hard to follow. Some of that has to do with some clumsy storytelling. And some of it has to do with me being kind of bored through a portion of it.

After "The Avengers," Tony Stark is suffering from some PTSD, which is understandable since he almost died. He can't sleep, is getting even weirder than normal, and eventually starts getting full blown panic attacks. Throughout the film he tries to come to terms with all that, which serves as his character arc here. I do have to give the "Iron Man" trilogy credit for having Tony Stark evolve as a character with each film.

The actual plot has to do with The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), a shadowy Osama bin Laden type figure who is doing a pretty good job of blowing up a lot of stuff without getting caught. There is also an epidemic of exploding people going on which seems to be connected to The Mandarin. After his friend and head of security, Happy Hogan (John Favreau) gets severely hurt in one the attacks, Tony foolishly calls The Mandarin out, only to get his house blown up and all his stuff wrecked.

Oh man. This was ill-advised.

A side story that eventually takes center stage is a scientist named Alrich Killian (Guy Pearce). He's working on technology that will allow people to rapidly heal themselves, and also turn themselves into 3000 degree walking infernos if they feel like it. That's a hell of a side effect, but there you go. That's a real scientist in action, folks. There is no thing in science which doesn't lead to horrible, world-ending abominations of mankind.

"Hey man. Do you want science or not?"

So we've got The Mandarin blowing stuff up, Killian doing science that assures that he'll be a villain, and Tony traipsing around Tennessee trying to fix his suit. Eventually everything comes together and we get a showdown with these walking fireballs and a whole lot of Iron Man suits that are all fully capable of fighting without anyone inside. This is all fine, and fulfills the requisite number of explosions, at least in the third act when the action thankfully kicks in after a pretty talky first two acts.

I will praise "Iron Man 3" for Tony getting to show off his ingenuity after he is deprived of his suit, and must construct a bunch of makeshift weapons that come across like if Red Green had to make an machine like that. True, there was no duct tape that you could see, but I'm pretty sure there was probably some in there somewhere. Either way it was fun to see him go DIY after we're used to him pulling the most random bits of super technology out of his ass like the computerized version of Batman's utility belt.

"If they can't find you handsome, they might as well find you capable of improvising lethal weaponry."

I will say that Guy Pearce is doing a very good job of turning me around on my opinion of him. For a very long time I thought he was at best an average actor but lately he's really been busting his ass proving me wrong. In this film he's quietly intimidating to great effect, and he was actually a lot of fun to watch. Even though he character going from the mindset of helping mankind to terrorism just because a rich jerk snubbed you once seems like a rather severe leap. I'm just saying.

Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin was...interesting. When he's being the cold, ruthless terrorist he's perfectly evil, as Kingsley is an old hand at villainy to say the least. Then the character is taken in a slightly bizarre direction, and while it seems out of nowhere and probably a departure from how he is in the comics (I have to assume), I have to admit to getting a lot of entertainment out of him in the second half of the film.

 The Mandarin could be either a terrorist or the singer for an awesome power metal band.

Gwyneth Paltrow was alright I guess. Pepper Potts was always kind of a nothing character for me, personally, as I'm not quite sure why she's there because she doesn't really do anything. But at least here she serves more of a purpose when she gets kidnapped and is the focus of a "shocking moment" that was effective for all of two seconds before I called what was going to happen after. I was a bigger fan of Rebecca Hall, because even though she's kind of pointless too, she is gorgeous while doing so. Not that Gwyneth isn't easy on the eyes as well but Rebecca Hall is so hot you could cook a steak on her.

Medium rare, please. :D

The only person I didn't care for was Harley, a little geeky child played by Ty Simpkins. Ty is a fine young actor who was good in "Insidious" but I was not a fan of Harley. He's obnoxious and can't physically shut up. There's a scene where he ends up giving Tony a panic attack after rattling all these questions about the alien invasion at him, and I almost felt sick to my stomach - not because I had PTSD but because I wanted to punch him so hard that it caused me pain. I will admit that the chemistry between him and Downey Jr. was great, though. You can tell they had a lot of fun.

You know, all of this adds up to a fine film. It's entertaining, it's well acted, and it's seldom dull. So why aren't I aglow with praise? I'm not sure, really. I think it just goes back to me not really caring overly much about the Marvel franchise. And at the end of the day, if I can't recall a good majority of the film a mere day after seeing it, what does that say?

"That you have a moderate to severe head injury?"

I'm not sure. I don't know what my deal is with these movies. But whatever my issue, it probably means I'm going to get a lot more people telling me I'm dead wrong. Fine, whatever. Start the nerd rage. Take a number. I'm going to be over here, watching "The Dark Knight Rises."

Here's the trailer for "Iron Man 3," in case you've been under a rock for 6 months.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Iron Man 3" is a competent movie. It's fine. It's well done. And it's fading from my memory so quickly it's difficult to remember many of the praises or various issues I had with it. I can't see myself watching it again, although I'm not upset that I saw it. I honestly have very few feelings towards it whatsoever. So if my apathy isn't condemnation, by all means consider this a recommendation.