Machete Kills

The first MACHETE wasn't exactly high art but it was at least enjoyable. It had a backstory at the beginning and some very enjoyable characters such as the senator played by De Niro or the katana-wielding villain played by Seagal. Here however there are as many cameos by various known actors but it's not like the first one unfortunately.

After the events of the first movie Machete (Danny Trejo) is arrested by Sheriff Doakes (William Sadler) who tries to hang him but he doesn't because he receives a call from President Rathcock (Charlie Sheen) that offers to give Machete his American citizenship if he kills Marcos Mendez (Demian Bichir), a psycopath who wants to blow Washington D.C. with a nuke. After meeting with some prostitutes Machete learns about Mendez's backstory and why he got involved with the people constructing the missile. He then gets shot by Doakes and we see him in a healing tank. He then finds Mendez's benefactor... corrupt businessman and Star Wars fan Luther Voz (Mel Gibson). After meeting again with Luz (Michelle Rodriguez) he receives some encouragment by president Rathcock who tells him to do that last mission for him. And then the movie falls into the boring zone.

None of the actors looked like having the time of their lives as in the first one and it looked like they were there for the paycheck. Danny Trejo is probably the only good actor in the movie while Mel Gibson as the villain looked so hammy and unengaging as well. Sheen, Sadler and the others do their best with the material given. A few of the gory scenes played for comical effects were even grosser than those in the predecessor.

Probably one of the worst sequels ever made and I only hope that its sequel MACHETE GOES TO SPACE (as it appears on Danny Trejo's films in production list) is funnier than this boring mess!

I love Machete. The character is incredible, the premise is perfect, literally everything about it just screams B-movie stupidity, and it's insanely awesome. I actually saw this movie before the first Machete so I wasn't sure what to expect, and I laughed until it hurt. Seriously, it was everything I wanted in a silly action movie. Machete Kills is somehow even more ridiculous than the first one, this time with president Charlie Sheen ordering Machete to go after a lunatic nuclear arms dealer played to perfection by Demian Bichir, and Mel Gibson wants to destroy the world and colonize space. Yeah, and you thought De Niro playing George Bush was crazy. Mel Gibson is basically a Bond villain in this movie.

This is another revenge story, except this time it's Machete's love interest Jessica Alba who is killed in front of him. Needless to say when President Sheen asks him to go on this suicide mission, Machete isn't exactly in the best frame of mind. Then again, it's f*cking Danny Trejo, so he's awesome at it anyway. The first half of the movie focuses more on Machete going after this crazy arms dealer, with random villains like Sofia Vergara with machine gun tits coming after him. There's also the shapeshifter El Cameleon played by Cuba Gooding Jr, Lady Gaga, and Antonio Banderas. Literally the best plot device to get as many famous people in a movie as possible. Then Mel kicks in during the second half of the movie and that's where it goes full-on ridiculous mode (in the best way, as if it wasn't ridiculous enough before).

After seeing Machete and Machete Kills back to back, I realize the only thing that makes Machete Kills slightly weaker is that the laughs aren't as consistent. Machete had me on the floor 90 percent of the time. Machete Kills is more like, 70 percent hilarity and 30 percent of jokes that either don't hit or are just repeated to the point of desensitization. Still, when the jokes hit, they are laugh-out-loud funny. There are gags in this movie that make the original Machete look like a documentary. Oh, and Amber Heard is the special agent helping Machete this time, and she tries to do an accent every once in a while and fails miserably, but who cares because she's sex on a stick. That's basically the trend in these movies. You try to analyze something and then think to yourself, "Who cares?" It's so damn entertaining you don't have to think at all. Just lay back and enjoy the gratuitous violence, T&A, and everything else you'd want in a ridiculous action-packed B-movie. I, for one, cannot wait for the sequel.

First came "Grindhouse" (2007), a critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful ode to exploitation films of the 1970's & 1980's. Then came "Machete" (2010), an unapologetically violent spin off adapted by popular demand from one of the fake trailers that accompanied "Grindhouse".

Unlike "Grindhouse", "Machete" was a commercial success, making 2 1/2 times its money back in domestic grosses alone. Inevitably, there would be a sequel. Because of how much I enjoyed "Machete", I was looking forward to "Machete Kills" (2013).

Unfortunately, while the movie's predecessors were aware that they were both parodying and paying tribute to low budget schlock flicks, "Machete Kills" somehow forgets that fact. The over-the-top violence and sex is still there, but something still did not feel right as I was watching this film.

The movie starts out right as you get an allegedly fake trailer for "Machete Kills Again . . . In Space". In this "preview" (which may or may not actually get made in the near future), the film is grainy, scientifically unrealistic, and primarily fun to watch.

Then the movie begins, and the film is as clear as crystal, the first indication that the director, Robert Rodriguez, somehow forgot what he was parodying. Based on the casting of supporting characters, Rodriguez may have also intended "Machete Kills" more as a second chance for once-prominent actors with now-notorious reputations than a tongue-in-cheek tribute to his love for fun, low-budget cinema.

The original "Machete" was no masterpiece, but it was enjoyable to watch because Danny Trejo played an appealing bad-ass, and the narrative was solid. In "Machete Kills", Danny Trejo somehow doesn't seem to be into the character he made his own, keeping the same inexpressive face throughout as if he is already bored with playing the character.

The story in this movie is also too simplified and hackneyed to accommodate as many supporting characters as it does. There's a terrorist who is about to launch a nuclear missile from Mexico to Washington, D.C., and is one of those villains who doesn't know what he wants to do with the world once he takes it over.

While Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, and others from the original movie make welcome returns to this sequel, so many characters are added to this story that their presence actually makes the story more confusing. There's a Miss Texas beauty pageant contestant (Amber Heard) who serves as both a femme fatale and almost an Agent Q to Machete, a brothel owner (Sofia Vergara) with an uninspired bra gun which has been done in countless movies and TV shows before, and a lone assassin who assumes many identities (including Lady Gaga) who wants to kill Machete for reasons the film doesn't seem to explain.

If you're going to accommodate that many characters, write a story where every character has more of a useful goal than "Kill the hero", or even "Make a clever cameo". While I thought it was clever to have Charlie Sheen be credited as Carlos Estevez (his birth name) in the beginning sequence, he served no purpose playing the President of the United States.

It's as if the screenwriters just said, "Hey, you know what would be funny? Let's have a formerly legitimate actor whose life is a train wreck play the President!" Sure, Sheen smokes, womanizes, and swears in his role, but those actions alone don't elicit more than a chuckle.

On the other hand, I bought into Mel Gibson playing Voz, the villainous operator of a weapons manufacturer who made the nuclear missile. Does Gibson's presence here show how fall the former A-lister has fallen? Maybe, but he still sold every line he spoke, and still showed his good acting days are not behind him.

As for the gratuitous violence, I was hoping for more irony in what I was watching. Machete doesn't seem to have more creative ways to use a large knife beside slashing it from right to left. Plus, any creative ways a nemesis dies seems to be ripped right from "The Itchy & Scratchy Show" cartoon on "The Simpsons".

If Robert Rodriguez decides to go ahead and make "Machete Kills Again . . . In Space", he needs to make sure there's enough room in the story for any celebrities whose careers he wants to revitalize. Plus, he needs to embrace the graininess of fun B-movies, and remember that even schlock fails without a coherent story.

Probably foremost, he also needs to make sure Danny Trejo actually wants to reprise his role, because you got no indication of that desire here. Or, even better, give Michelle Rodriguez her own spin off as Luz, the Mexican revolutionary. Unlike Trejo, she actually seemed like she wanted to be there.

Let me start off by saying love love love the first Machete. I can watch it anytime... This one, not so much. Robert Rodriquez swung for the fences with this one and it missed. Some people will never ever say anything bad about the guy and some will genuinely like it, but to be honest.. it just didn't have that X factor the first Machete did. This time around Machete is more like a super hero. He is sent on a mission to Mexico by the President (excellent choice of casting Charlie Sheen, using his birth name of Carlos Esteves). But other than that, (and of course Danny Trejo and Michelle Rodriquez), the rest of the cast just didn't fit. The schizo Mexican revolutionary didn't fit, Cuba was completely out of place, wasn't really feeling Lady Gaga or Amber Heard (even though she is gorgeous) and the gorgeous Sophia Vegara was just a little too manic. But it really wasn't that.. the film just was kind of flat, even the action scenes weren't clicking. Maybe because they gave away too much in the previews. Maybe its because they made Machete inhuman.. All I know is that when I was in the theater, 3 people around me fell asleep and 4 people walked out a hour after the film started... AND it wasn't that many people in the theater. Gosh I wanted it to be so much better.. This is a rental, at best

In Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills, Danny Trejo's character—deadly Mexican secret agent Machete Cortez—is about as three-dimensional and grounded in realism as a Looney Tunes cartoon character tripping on peyote. For many, this move towards a crazier style with even more unbelievable splatstick violence will be a step too far, the live-action-cartoon style antics exceeding many people's willingness to suspend disbelief. However, those who can find their way safely past this potential stumbling block should have a whale of a time.

Rodriguez directs proceedings with a carefree attitude and sense of fun that I found infectious, with all ideas—no matter how dumb they must have looked on paper—making their way into the final film. Thus, we have a Bond-style baddie in the form of megalomaniac Luther Voz (Mel Gibson), our hero killing numerous henchmen in a variety of creative ways, some innovative sci-fi weaponry, plenty of cool in-jokes for us movie geeks (I loved the visual reference to Mad Max II) and a bevy of lovely latino babes in sexy gear (including Alexa Vega in PVC and Michelle Rodriguez in tight, cleavage enhancing top). Hell, Rodriguez is having so much fun that he doesn't even care about the quality of his CGI, which only adds to the gleefully gaudy vibe.

It all gets very silly, and with the next sequel featuring Machete in space, it's set to get a whole lot sillier; I for one will make sure I've booked my seat for the ride.

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for being marginally more fun than the first one.