Machete

December 17, 2011

This is a hard review to write. I wanted so much to love Machete. I would have been content with liking Machete, but mostly I was just annoyed at Machete…and Robert Rodriguez. OH, it’s painful to admit that I’m disappointed in one of my favorite directors.

I wasn’t expecting a serious action film – I was expecting exploitation…mex-ploitation? Rodriguez was right on the money for mex-ploitation, but parts of it were so boring and so confusing. I wasn’t expecting to be so confused by the plot – I don’t remember being this confused since Superfly.

I literally laughed out loud at scene of Machete attempting to assasinate Robert De Niro’s character. My husband was looking at me funny and I said Taxi Driver and he was like, “I know. So?” I was all like, “Nevermind…”

So Jessica Alba is now one of Robert Rodriguez’s favorite actresses. Am I going to have to tolerate her horrible overacting in every movie that Rodriguez makes now? She was not believable as a INS Agent. She was not believable working out. She wasn’t believable sleeping. She wasn’t even believable cooking! Her nude scenes were not even real – they were all computer generated. Twelve years ago, I predicted that her future held only shampoo commercials. Obviously, I was dead wrong…but I can’t for the life of me figure out WHY.

Lindsay Lohan…really? Whatever acting skills she possessed as a child are long gone. Her looks are also long gone, as is any reason any director should hire her ever again. Luckily, she was only in the film for 3-4 minutes – half her scenes were done by a body double. Why isn’t she dead yet?

Steven Seagal? I thought he was a state trooper or a border enforcer or something?

It wasn’t all bad…I really enjoyed watching Machete get violent. My favorite part was when he used that guy’s intestines as a bungee cord to escape from the hospital. It kinda reminded me of Hannibal. I also liked his one liners and the fact that he banged every female in the movie, or at least I think he did? They cut away just as sexy time was getting started. Was it a stylistic choice? Or were the actresses too scared to let Machete hump them?

The sequel – Machete Kills – is in the works. (Although I hope Sin City 2 gets finished first!) Not bad for a film that began as a fake trailer. Hobo with a Shotgun also got made into a film and I read somewhere that Eli Roth is working on bringing Thanksgiving to the big screen. Why not? Thanksgiving is one of the single most horrifying holidays ever…no wait, that’s Easter. We needs a good Easter horror movie…the whole holiday is based on a man coming back from the dead!