Machete Kills: Not an Actual Movie

Developing a high tolerance for nonsense movies will improve your life. If you can find the rowdy, visceral joy in cinematic dumpster fires, your entertainment options expand drastically. This is a position I hold firm to, and while it has cost me significant amounts of money through the years (paid good American dollars to see Shutter in theaters), I have seen, and greatly enjoyed, many, many bad movies. So when I tell you that Machete Kills is a borderline unwatchable fuck-fest, you should trust me.

Or you could just let this poster tell you everything you need to know.

Machete Kills is the follow-up to 2010's Machete, a blood stained, sex laden romp through the issues (immigration, cartel activity) that currently define the U.S./Mexico border. It's an absurdest take on some very serious material, and if you bother to look beneath the epic kills (and there are some *epic kills*) and naked ladies, you'll find a story there. You might even find a message. Machete Kills contains neither of those things.

What it does contain are nearly identical ingredients, which is to say lots of sex and violence. Danny Trejo  returns as the titular federale, tasked with saving the United States from a Mexican mad man named Mendez who has a stolen nuclear warhead pointed at Washington, D.C. In order to do so, Machete must capture and deliver Mendez, played by Demien Bichir, to the U.S. border. His preferred method of doing so is to kill everything in his path. Weapons Machete murders with in Machete Kills include (but are not limited to): a machete, a meat cleaver, a speed boat, a helicopter (twice), a spear gun, and his bare hands. This movie has many weaknesses; a body count is not one of them.

Filling out the LADIES portion of Machete Kills are Michelle Rodriguez, Amber Heard (as I've previously stated, the hottest woman on the g.d. planet), Sofia Vergara, Lady Gaga, and Vanessa Hudgens. More good looking women might be the lone improvement Machete Kills makes on its predecessor, which is hugely disappointing. This is a movie that wants to be a B-movie. It aspires to do no more than entertain on the basest of levels. How do you fuck that up, Robert???

Part of the problem is the run time. Machete Kills overstays it's welcome at 107 minutes. Another significant misstep is the addition of a science fiction element, (Machete Kills Again...In Space! is in development to complete the trilogy) which it totally did not need. Machete's cinematic methods were not sophisticated, but they were highly effective. Machete Kills convolutes the formula set by it's predecessor, careening the joyful absurdity that defined it into a nigh-unwatchable train wreck. It is the hardest of bummers.

I understand why Robert Rodriguez made Machete Kills the way he did. Sequels must try to top their predecessors, and when you're predecessor is the pitch-perfect whirl of action that was Machete, it is going to be hard not to push things too far the second time around. But Machete Kills could have--should have--been much better. The effort was there. The execution wasn't. 

Directed By: Robert Rodriguez

Starring: Danny Trejo, Carlos Estevez, Mel Gibson, Demien Bichir, Michelle Rodriguez, Amber Heard, Sofia Vergara

You Should see it if: You really, reeeeeeeeeeeeally liked Shoot 'Em Up.