REVIEW - MACHETE KILLS

How good is a joke the second time around? And what if the joke wasn't all that good to begin with? Would that Robert Rodriguez could admit that his Machete films are their own beast, he might be able to fix up something coherent out of the concept. Maybe his inability to define exactly what tone to strike is what provides these films a raison d'etre, but it's a raison d'etre better served by the fake trailer the franchise was established upon, and the one which precedes Machete Kills. If aping the plain old badness of exploitation films was obviously top of the agenda, I don't expect Rodriguez intended the result to be, well, this good, you know? And it all contributes to a shrug of a film, with a misplaced sense of crassness and brazenness that only a multi-million dollar budget can induce. He needs to go back and watch his own Planet Terror, among other things. His problem isn't he's done too much homework, see, it's that he's either too smart or not smart enough to know how to apply the knowledge he's gained. For every priceless verbal gag, there's a line that deploys a more intelligent tone. For every dodgy visual effect, there's an elaborate set design or smoothly-edited action sequence. Rodriguez's affection for CGI doesn't help. And then there are the numerous cameos, like a running joke, only never treated as a running joke. You want to believe Rodriguez's tongue is wedged firmly in cheek when Lady Gaga pops up, or Mel Gibson, until their characters are treated with undue attention, and the whole idea of stunt casting gets dropped. Yet, through all this, this attempt at making a properly shit film is more cool and more fun than a great deal of attempts at making properly good films. And Machete Kills Again... In Space doesn't sound like such a bad idea - it does have a great fake trailer!