Machete Kills

Machete Kills starring Amber Heard (Miss San Antonio) & Danny Trejo (Machete), © 2013 Quick Draw Prods.

I am surprised at how not excited most people I know are about this movie. With comments attacking it for looking like a bad movie, I went into this expecting more of the same from the original Machete. But this movie is the tale of overcoming the odds. I mean, Danny Trejo is not a huge star and this is a sequel to a modern Mexploitation film from a Mexican director. Here are the steps that it took to arrive at Machete Kills.

© 1991 Columbia Pics. Co. El Mariachi.

1. Robert Rodriguez has to become a director. See above.
2. Rodriguez has to get a chance as a Hollywood director. See his remake of El Mariachi. 
3. Rodriguez must have continued success, and then get in good by having a series of hits for a major studio. Like Spy Kids.
4. Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino must become pals and both love 1970’s horror films.
5. They have to make an homage to those films and convince theaters to show a packaged double feature! Those movies were known as Planet Terror and Death Proof.
6. Within that combination the fake Machete trailer gets the most attention, thus leading to the possibility of securing financing to actually go ahead and make the movie.
7. Then a bunch of stars have to sign on. Robert De Niro was in Machete! So was Lindsay Lohan! Less impressively, it reteamed the stars of “Nash Bridges.”
8. BUT before we continue, we need to talk about how Danny Trejo wound up in the trailer within Grindhouse. Let us go back to the 1980’s and Folsom where Trejo became a jailhouse boxing champion.
9. Trejo needs to get clean and become a sponsor who shows up to hang out in a parking lot with a former drug user who needs someone to support him while his coworkers snort some coke.
10. Those coworkers have to be working on a movie set for Runaway Train, one of the writers has to be an ex-con named Edward Bunker who recognizes Trejo and sets him up as the boxing trainer Eric Roberts.
11. Trejo has to succeed as an extra for a while before getting slightly larger roles in hits like Desperado, directed by Robert Robriguez, a remake of his indie-film El Mariachi.
12. They have to hit it off and Rodriguez has to start called Trejo “Machete,” in fact, in Rodriguez’s hit children’s movies, Spy Kids, Trejo got to play “Uncle Machete.”
13. The original Machete has to make enough money to secure financing for a sequel and the main actors, Trejo and Michelle Rodriguez have to sign back up to do it again.

Uncle Machete and the Spy Kids in Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D, © Dimension Films 2011.

All of that had to happen just to make Machete Kills. But the end of Machete promised not only his return in Machete Kills, but also in Machete Kills Again. So ask yourself, do you think that such a thing could happen? And if so, do you believe that it could take place…IN SPACE!? For that is how this movie starts off—with a mock trailer for Machete Kills Again…In Space. I thought that Robert Rodriguez’s hither to unknown love to Star Wars would stop there, but not at all. Mel Gibson’s Bond villain “Voz” also has a love for Star Wars as is shown by his mock Tattoine speeder.

I was not joking about the mock speeder.

Voz does not appear in the first hour of the movie, which is generally a bad sign for the quality of a movie when its villain is unknown for that long. That is the case here. It is as cheesy as Gibson himself is in this role. He was more consistent than his predecessor as villain Mendez–Demain Bichir–who spends a good 30 minutes with Machete trying to get himself killed. So this movie was wildly inconsistent, but occasionally very enjoyable. It was as much a waste of talent, as it was a wonderful collection of it. Jessica Alba’s return was pretty average, but Sofia Vergara was…actually not very good, but on the other hand Charlie Sheen—in his first role under his birth name of Carlos Estevez—was fine as the president, and the combination of Walter Goggins, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Lady Gaga and Antonio Banderas was actually pretty cool. And what can be said about Danny Trejo besides that he was totally f’n awesome.

**½

I thought that Machete don’t text?