Machete Kills (2013)

Danny Trejo reprises his role as the eponymous hero in writer & director Robert Rodriguez's preposterous, larger-than-life "Machete Kills," a blazing, no-holds barred, actioneer about a former cartel leader turned revolutionary who threatens to fire a missile at Washington, D.C. Predictably, Machete is sent to dispatch this unsavory character. You cannot take a movie like "Machete Kills" seriously any more than you could take a Daffy Duck cartoon seriously. However, this is the charm of this outlandish epic. The "Machete" movies are all about guts, one way or another, and our hero relies on more than his own guts to get him safely through another assignment. In the first film, he used a dying man's intestines to rappel out a window, while in the sequel, he pulls a man's guts out and slings the slimy things into the whirling rotor blades of a helicopter. The chopper blade snags the guts and hoists Machete's adversary into them, cutting him to bites. In the middle of all this mayhem, Mel Gibson pops up as the real villain. Danny Trejo plays everything straight as if he were in a serious movie and this goes a long way at the end of the day. Charlie Sheen is hilarious as Rathcock, the President of the United States. If you're a big Jessica Alba fan, you don't have to watch anything after her earlier scene where she is killed. This is just as surprising as Hitchcock's "Psycho" where Janet Leigh was offed in an earlier scene. "Machete Kills" qualifies as big dumb fun! Let's hope Rodriguez musters the nerve to pull off "Machete Kills Again . . . . In Space."

Machete Kills starts with a trailer for the sequel to Machete Kills. It's pretty funny. It's all downhill from there.Machete Kills is a parody of bad action movies, I suppose, but it reads more like it's just a bad action movie. The dialogue is awful; not funny awful, just really bad. The action sequences are over the top yet not that much fun. If not for that opening trailer, I'm not sure I'd even realize this was supposed to be a parody.After watching maybe 20 minutes I got bored and read some of the IMDb reviews. Some were so enthusiastic about the action sequences that I moved forward and watched one where the movie repeats the same gag within two minutes. I was underwhelmed.Not the movie for me.

A lot of fun. Plot basically described in the title...While I have not been left with any long-lasting memories from this film, I was never bored while watching it. It has action, it's funny, the pace is good and has a decent amount of eye candy without stepping too far into soft core territory. If the film had to be put into a category; then entertaining nonsense would be a fair fit. It isn't trying to be deep or meaningful, it just wants to keep your eyeballs busy: it does just that.The film's tongue is stuck so far into it's cheek it is almost beyond recrimination. Any criticism laid at it's door seem almost pointless and could be easily diverted by the intentionally spoofy nature of the production.One to watch with a few mates, some beers, and snacks.

I won't mess about here. Danny Trejo as a leading actor is like Buggs Bunny as a Presidential candidate. It's a laughable gimmick and nothing more. Gaga? Stick to nut-ball musical performances. Acting is your kryptonite you pointless creature. Machete Kills is a train wreck of an action movie. The plot is thin and basic. At the halfway point I found myself wondering if I was actually drunk and imagining the whole thing. It sort of blurred it's elements together to pass off as continuity but still felt like a bad trip.2 stars because 1)They managed to come up with a budget to produce this filth, and 2)They made it in colour.Confusing junk.