New-to-DVD: Machete Kills

It took me a while to figure out exactly what Machete Kills, Robert Rodriguez's latest of several Mexploitation homages, was trying to do, and the irony is that once I finally figured it out --rather late in the game, I admit -- that's when I started to lose interest.

Danny Trejo returns as Isador "Machete" Cortez, who was a minor supporting character in Rodriguez's "Spy Kids" series, had a cameo in the Rodriguez/ Tarantino collaboration Grindhouse, and finally got his own movie in 2010.  Unlike the family-friendly Spy Kids series that originally launched the character, Machete was an ultra-violent action movie with adult themes, blood and gore, tons of gunplay, and gleefully gratuitous female nudity.  Even more than Rodriguez's earlier "El Mariachi" trilogy, Machete was a loving tribute to the sheer excess of Mexican exploitation films, featuring familiar stock characters, styles, and themes but with a bigger budget.

Machete Kills, which introduces science fiction elements into the mix (whereas the previous film, despite eyebrow-raising stunts, decidedly took place in the real world) apparently doesn't entirely abandon this premise, as I have just read that Mexploitation films went through a science fiction phase circa 1970.  However, despite the Mexican and Mexican-American themes that persist in both Machete and Machete Kills, I'd say it's pretty clear that the latter film is less interested in Mexploitation and more interested in poking fun at another subgenre, namely Bond films.  And not just any Bond films, I'm talking about Bond films of the Moonraker variety, where the crossover between "supposed to be real world" Bond and "pretty much science fiction" becomes so silly that the movie is sort of daring you to roll your eyes; whether you choose to take it seriously or not, either way, you're the schmuck.

The movie starts out realistically enough (by action movie standards) with Machete Cortez and his partner, Sartana Rivera (Jessica Alba) on a seemingly routine mission for the D.E.A.  Things go bad, Sartana is killed, Machete is left for dead, the crooked, racist sheriff (William Sadler) falsely accuses Machete for Sartana's murder, and thus Machete once again finds himself on both sides of the law.  His savior comes in the form of none other than the President of the United States, as Machete's living-legend status has reached all the way to the White House.  The President's proposal: If Machete agrees to track down and kill Mexican crime boss Marcos Mendez, Machete's criminal record will be wiped clean.

Machete's subsequent meeting with his government handler, played by Amber Heard, is the first clue (one I didn't pick up on until in retrospect) that we're starting to tread into Bond territory; Heard's Miss San Antonio, right down to the name, is more like a Bond girl than a Mexploitation character, while the weapons she provides to Machete are worthy of Q.

The increasingly gimmicky femmes fatale and villains Machete later meets are more and more reminiscent of Bond-style characters.  There's Madame Desdemona, a man-hating brothel owner with automatic guns not hidden in, but rather fashioned out of her underwear; Marko Zaror, a martial-arts expert who has been cloned so many times that he's a constant threat no matter how many times Machete kills him; Marcos Mendez, a split-personality crime boss whose heart is directly wired to a bomb trigger that will destroy Washington, D.C. if Mendez is killed; the aptly-named hitman El Cameleón, whose mastery of disguise allows the character to be played by multiple celebrities; and most gimmicky and villainous of all, Luther Voz, a space and weapons technology CEO who invents sci-fi gadgets in his spare time, and very possibly may be telling the truth when he claims that he can see into the future.  Meanwhile, as Machete finds himself repeatedly surrounded by sexy women, and as he kills his way through dozens of nameless bad guys, Voz plots to destroy civilization, re-populate whatever's left with a chosen few, and then rule the world.  Oh yeah, this is not only Bond territory, this is taking Bond and saying "screw it, let's not just acknowledge the cliches, let's see how far they can go!"

A word or three about the casting: The President of the United States is played by Charlie Sheen, who was cast at the height of his very public meltdown.  The film plays up to Sheen's "bad boy" image, depicting the President (whose unsubtle name is "Rathcock") as a foul-mouthed womanizer who occasionally comes up with crazy ideas.  The casting of Sheen is a one-joke premise that is never actually funny, but it still somehow works.

Mendez is played by Demián Bichir, whom I've never head of before.  His performance as the wacko Mendez is decidedly over the top, but a lot of fun.

The other main villain, Voz, is played by Mel Gibson.  It's the first time Gibson's ever played a villainous role, and he does it well.

Okay, okay, so does all of this make for a good movie?  Well, let me put it to you this way: If you've read this far and still want to see the movie, you'll probably enjoy it.  If it all sounds a bit too silly for you -- and it can indeed be a silly movie at times -- you'd be right to stay away.  How silly does this movie get?  At the beginning of the film, there is an ad for Machete Kills Again . . . in Space!, complete with robots, a Vader-like villain, and light-saber battles.  Considering the real-world setting of the previous film, we dismiss this movie trailer as a joke.  By the end of Machete Kills, we realize that the "Machete in outer space" scenario really would be the only possible continuation of the story.