Last weekend, I watched the sequel to Robert Rodriguez's 2010 grindhouse flick...and I have five words to say: What the hell was THAT? With the first Machete, Rodriguez intentionally set out to make a bad flick that ended up being very campy and entertaining. With Machete Kills, there were still campy and entertaining moments—but just like George Lucas (who either should be flattered or embarrassed by the random Star Wars references), Rodriguez let the success (so to speak) of the first movie get to his head and added even more cheesy and self-indulgent scenes to the latest Danny Trejo pic. As mentioned in the parentheses above, there were a gripload of Star Wars moments...obviously the "sneak preview" at the beginning of the flick showing Trejo welding a lightsaber against the Man with the Silver Mask (not necessarily played by Leonardo DiCaprio... An inside-joke in Machete Kills), the landspeeder-looking golf cart that Mel Gibson used to drive around his company's floor and (spoilers ahead) Michelle Rodriguez being encased in (not-)carbonite by the Man with the Silver Mask in the sequel's climax. If Machete Kills was as wacky and disjointed as The Empire Strikes Back was dark and awesomely epic, one wonders how Machete Kills Again...In Space (assuming it gets made) fares against Return of the Jedi. Oh, and Machete Kills also made a reference to Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove...but how many folks who aren't Kubrick fans or die-hard movie aficionados get that reference?
Considering how twisted and misogynistic Machete Kills was, it's probably safe to say that the only reason why this film was worth watching was because of all the gorgeous actresses in the movie. From Amber Heard, Michelle Rodriguez and Jessica Alba (whose fate in this flick is another reason why this film should be hissed at) to Alexa Vega, Vanessa Hudgens and Sofia Vergara, Machete Kills clearly had a lot more femme fatales in it than the first movie did. I never saw Spy Kids, but I'm sure fans of this film will be jaw-dropped at how much Vega has grown since that 2001 flick, while Vergara goes from being Al Bundy's wife in the hit TV show Modern Family to a brothel-owning "man-eater" (her character's exact words in Machete Kills) who wears armor-plated boob guns and a strap-on that also...fires bullets. Lady Gaga shows up in the flick, but mostly to give an excuse to have Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Antonio Banderas (who played Vega's dad in Spy Kids) join this movie's cast as well.
I didn't think my review for Machete Kills would be this long (I'd be ashamed of myself if it ended up being longer than my latest entries for Gravity and Captain Phillips), but I'll end this by saying that Machete Kills could've been better. A lot better. In another randomness for this film, entrepreneur Elon Musk and his SpaceX aerospace company made an appearance in Machete Kills (not so randomly, SpaceX's role is actually integral to the story). I wonder how much Musk was paid to make a cameo in this flick...which, unlike in Iron Man 2 (where Musk appropriately had a run-in with his fictional equivalent, Tony Stark), came out of nowhere. Seeing as how Machete Kills Again...In Space is supposed to happen in um, space, we'll see if more prominent figures in the aerospace industry show up in the second sequel. This is assuming that it gets made; Machete Kills flopped big time on opening weekend. To which Danny Trejo's character can retort, "Machete don't check box office grosses." But I'm sure that Robert Rodriguez does—and the future's not looking bright for our blade-welding Latino antihero... 'Nuff said.
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