Title: Machete Kills (2013)
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Cast: Danny Trejo, Mel Gibson, Michelle Rodriguez, Amber
Heard, Sofia Vergara, Charlie Sheen, William Sadler, Cuba Gooding Jr., Lady
Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Jessica Alba, William Sadler, Tom Savini
I’ve always been a huge supporter of Robert Rodriguez’s
particular brand of cinema because it’s obvious the guy loves B-Movies. He gets
the joys of watching a fun, silly b-movie that you can’t bring yourself to calling
“high art” but you can’t deny having fun with. B-movies can be entertaining,
sleazy, shocking, fast paced, but above all fun. They are a quick thrill, a
jolt of electricity down your spine, films you watch for “shits and giggles” as
Austin Powers would say. Right from the beginning of his career Rodriguez has made b-movies and through the years, he’s become a specialist in them. A quick look
through his filmology and all you’ll see are b-movies: From Dusk Till Dawn (1994),
Planet Terror (2007), Machete (2010) to mention but a few. Rarely has he
deviated from the b-movie highway, save for making family films that make tons
of moolah so he can keep making more b-movies. Keeping that in mind, I really
wasn’t expecting Machete Kills, the sequel to Machete, to be a ground breaking
film in any way or form, in fact, I was expecting the complete opposite. With
Machete Kills I was expecting a film that would play with familiar b-movie
troupes, but taken to the extreme by Rodriguez, the current king of b-movie
cinema. Machete Kills is a b-movie on steroids!
This time around, Machete is working on a top secret mission
for the President of the United States to kill a madman called ‘Voz’ (played by a toungue firmly in cheek Mel Gibson), a maniac
who wants to destroy the earth and take off on a spaceship to create a new,
perfect society up on his space station. You know, kind of like that James Bond flick
called Moonraker (1979) in which the villain wanted to do the same exact thing.
Anyways, it’s up to Machete to stop him. Problem is that there’s a group of
vengeful hookers who want to kill Machete, a personality switching psychopathic
killer who wants to off Machete for a hefty ransom and on top of all that, a
rebellious leader named She wants Machete to be the leader of her revolution!
Can Machete achieve all these things in one movie? Of course he can, we’re in
b-movie heaven here! Anything can and does happen!
Charlie Sheen as The President of the United States of America
The minute this movie started, I had a grin on my face. That
70’s “coming attraction” thing that pops up in so many Tarantino/Rodriguez
films appeared on the screen and I immediately I strapped myself on tight because
I knew one of those divinely fun fake trailers was about to appear. And sure
enough, the film starts with a trailer for Machete Kills Again…In Space! The
idea for that possible sequel looks all kinds of fun, Machete ends up in a
space station shooting laser guns and wielding a glowing machete that resembles
a lightsaber from Star Wars…only it’s a machete! It looks a bit like Barbarella
(1968) mixed with an ultra cheap version of Star Wars (1977), actually, if I
were to compare it to anything, I’d say it looks something closer to Luigi
Cozzi’s Star Crash (1978), an Italian science fiction film that’s incredibly
hilarious, highly recommend you guys check it out if you’re in the mood for a
cheap Italian version of Star Wars, in other words, Machete Kills Again…In
Space! looks like pure unadulterated b-movie goodness, if it ever happens! So
how does Machete go from fighting ‘federales’ and the F.B.I., to fighting on a
space station with lasers wheezing by? I’ll tell you how, through the magic
that Robert Rodriguez concocts behind the camera, that’s how! I mean, here’s a
director who understands that in movie land, any crazy thing you can dream up
can happen and that’s alright because this is a movie! It’s not real! And I
love that approach he takes with some of his movies and I loved that about
Machete Kills.
Of course, I have to be honest, the majority of the
population is going to think this movie is shit and I’ll tell ya why, this
movie was made specifically for that core group of people who love b-movies,
for those fan boys who get why Mel Gibson is driving a hovercraft from Star
Wars, or that the whole Machete in Space thing is a spoof of all those movies
that end up sending their heroes “to space” because they can’t think of
anything better to do with their film. So guys like me and that other guy in
the theater I was in that was obviously enjoying the movie, laughed like maniacs, the other half was asking “why are
those guys laughing?” But who cares, for those few who get it, this movie will
be an absolute blast, in fact if you can get past your pompous ass self and
just give into the madness, you just might have a good time yourself. The movie
goes at a lightning fast pace, crazy things are happening every five seconds,
you’ll never be bored. There’s always some joke, or some gory, shocking thing
happening on screen. Don’t look for things making sense, just go with the flow
because there’s never a dull moment on this movie; there’s one thing this movie
is and that’s entertaining.
At the end of the day I can’t bring myself to hate this
movie because it delivers exactly what I was expecting from it. I wasn’t
expecting anything I would take seriously, I was expecting something I would
laugh with and be amused by and that’s exactly what I got. I’m pretty damn sure
that Robert Rodriguez isn’t expecting anyone to give this movie a “good
review”, he was making a b-movie and he knew it. True, ever sense Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), some of Rodriguez's films have a shot in a hurry feel to them, and the result are sometimes sloppy but I can't deny the high fun factor of these "sloppy movies" he's been making. Sure I look forward to the day when he truly focuses all his strengths and makes something as awesome as Sin City (2005) or From Dusk Till Dawn (1994), but till then, I'm having a blast with these b-movies he keeps making. While making Machete Kills, he knew that most people wouldnt
get seeing Machete hurling some dudes intestines at the propellers of a
helicopter, he knew they wouldn’t get Sofia Vergara shooting bullets out of her
tits, but Rodriguez also knew that a group of us out there will
absolutely love this movie and get it and want to watch it over and over again,
and those are the ones he made this movie for. I mean where else are you going
to get a mix of Star Crash (1978), Moonraker (1979) and Mad Max (1979) all in
one movie? Nowhere else that’s where! Robert Rodriguez went all out ‘nutso’
with this movie, I mean, did you ever expect laser guns and people teleporting in
and out of existence on a Machete movie? Nope! But you’ll get that as well! And if that doesn't grab you, then the never ending avalanche of cameos should keep you entertained! I am looking forward to seeing Machete Kills
Again…In Space! Which is why I am hoping Machete Kills makes its modest 20 million
dollar budget back, I mean seeing Machete and She flying around in Jet Packs,
kicking some villains ass in a cheap version of the death star is the kind of
stuff I live for! Gotta love those groovy b-movies!
Rating: 3 out of 5
Rodriguez directs Gibson on the set of Machete Kills
