Robert Rodriguez’s fictitious trailer from “Grindhouse: Planet Terror” (2007) spawned “Machete” (2010). The feature ends with the promise of two sequels: “Machete Kills” (2013) and “Machete Kills Again.” Rodriguez is a man of his word. The sequel begins with previews for “Machete Kills Again…In Space” before resuming roughly where the first left off. This movie’s big bad fridges our hero’s latest lady, puts Machete on the authorities’ radar and leads him on a path to save the world, but will Machete get revenge?
“Machete Kills” starts strong and cracked me up. Beginning the movie with a preview set the tone. It emphasized humor in vein of the Sharknado franchise more than exploitation while not entirely disregarding its grindhouse homage. Rodriguez reframes Machete as more of a jet setting, rougher Bond figure. Rodriguez also introduces a couple of supernatural elements to make Machete’s stamina more plausible. Stunt casting Carlos Estevez, i.e. Charlie Sheen, as the President gave a host of opportunities to spoof The West Wing and centralize Hispanic/Latino culture in a familiar space that ordinarily erases any trace of ethnicity.
The story moves the action from the US to Mexico. The change of scenery introduces some excellent over the top characters such as Desdemona (Sofia Vergara), assassin Camaleon and madman Mendez (Demian Birchir). Vergara, whom most viewers are accustomed to seeing as the loveable, hot matriarch in “Modern Family,” steals the movie as the homicidal, man-hating, rage-filled whorehouse madam. She feels like the most authentic, Rodriguez character in the film, including our titular hero, who kills less and saves more. The mercurial Mendez comes in second as a possible foil and friend for Machete since they have more in common than one would expect from superficial appearances.
Any one of these supporting characters would make an excellent overarching villain in any movie, but they are short-changed once Rodriguez introduces the real big bad, Luthor Voz (Mel Gibson). I was not a fan of “Machete,” but at least I found it satisfying when the underdog clashed with their racist oppressors. Viewers could experience catharsis by witnessing an effective, physical form of vengeance that could plausibly defeat the oppressive forces when Rodriguez makes psychological violence literal and finite.
This film’s central conflict is not rooted in daily life, but generic threats such as ending the world and dominating humanity. While global domination includes enslaving Mexican laborers and treating human bodies like natural resources, these threats are afterthoughts to paying homage to Star Wars and Buck Rogers. Rodriguez becomes guilty of what his movies try to remedy: the erasure of Mexican specific grievances in American society to embrace more global, generic concerns thus making his characters’ identity irrelevant and erasing any cool socioeconomic, political subtext in his film. Rodriguez overstuffs “Machete Kills” with sci fi tropes until they become unmemorable. Other than the reappearance of various characters from the original movie, there is not much to distinguish this movie as a Rodriguez film from a generic sci fi parody film. The denouement becomes an ouroboros with the beginning of the film.
“Machete Kills” is not a complete, standalone movie. It is a movie that only serves as the first act to “Machete Kills Again…In Space.” It is an elaborate ruse to move the action off world and into the galaxy. The end of this movie segues into the scenes from the beginning of the movie, i.e. the preview. I resent films that show flashbacks from earlier scenes because a movie is not so long that I need a filmmaker to remind me of what happened earlier. It just feels like filler and ineffective emotional manipulation. Rodriguez has a hit a whole new low with this move. This end shows that Rodriguez does not care about the movie that we started watching but is impatient to get to the next movie. So why did not Rodriguez make his space movie instead of half-assing the second movie? No one was forcing him to make this movie. In retrospect, it felt as if Rodriguez had a handful of amazing ideas, did not want to flesh it out and make them into a cohesive whole. Instead of setting his ideas aside to work on later, he just shoehorned them into a transition between the first movie and the third. His impulse was prophetic because look at all the rich guys catapulting themselves into space. Maybe he should have trusted his instincts.
Rodriguez’s move seems cynical. Why would you toss Mendez aside for Voz? Because Gibson is a bigger household name in the US than Birchir! It is a no brainer. He can probably get more butts in the seats by throwing Gibson into this movie, but that move does not explain Heard. Heard plays a fully assimilated, passing Latino woman, Miss San Antonio, which in real life, she is not. Heard nailed the role, but I would have preferred an actor who was Hispanic/Latino and could pass such as Cameron Diaz, Bella Thorne or Alexis Bleidel. Heard was not so famous at that time that she could be excused as a box office draw though Rodriguez did snag her then boyfriend Elon Musk into making a cameo appearance. Rodriguez enjoys casting white people as villains, which I am fine with as long as they make good, memorable villains, seem specific to the story and do not feel lifted from other movies. The Machete franchise has a villain problem. Rodriguez passes over more memorable Hispanic characters in favor of bland, interchangeable, forgettable white ones, and it leaches all flavor from his films. Vox just seems like a watered-down Lex Luthor.
Side note: Gibson is a trash individual who still has amazing eyes and a great voice, but his skin is turning into The Portrait of Dorian Gray. His people wisely ordered him to pivot into playing villains, which he does well. “Machete Kills” serves him better than he serves the movie. He just does not seem like a villain specific to a Rodriguez film. Somewhere Aidan Quinn should be congratulating himself on his skincare routine since he is aging way better than his more famous, formerly hotter doppelganger. Also Birchir, the superior actor, has lost a lot of weight since I initially saw him in FX’s “The Bridge,” and he resembles a bunny, which I consider a compliment. I will not worry about him since his body seems back to its normal weight in “Godzilla vs. Kong” (2021), but I hope that he is ok.
Rodriguez needs to examine his impulses towards assimilation and acculturation. He seems fascinated by characters who appear to be Hispanic/Latino or white then someone mistakes them for the opposite. While he toyed with that theme perfectly in “Machete,” he did not stick the landing in “Machete Kills” though Antonio Banderas’ brief appearance late in the movie was one of the more interesting moments in that vast wasteland.
If you watch “Machete Kills” to see a Rodriguez film, you will ultimately feel disappointed, but as a parody film, it entertains though it overstays its welcome and is incomplete.
