date: 8/21/22/2019 1AM
★★☆☆☆

I gotta say, until you get to scene 12 per the DVD scene selection, Machete Kills really sucked. Hey, I love the spaghetti western genre more than most and what hetero male doesn’t love hot bodied scantily clad women running around trying to kill guys? This movie really jumped the shark focusing on the gore early on. I’ve also never understood some director’s fascination with killing people via helicopter rotor blade.

There was so much potential with Machete Kills. Letting Lady Gaga be anyone she wants. Mel Gibson did a superb job playing a mildly restrained psycho. Everyone of a certain age loved the billing of Charlie Sheen as Carlos Estevez. (Millenials who don’t get that should do a Web search for Charlie’s family members.) Danny Trejo does a really good job playing a tough guy.

Michelle Rodriguez saved this movie though. All of the bad writing and bad stunts seemed to leave the movie after her character appeared. It was almost like they had two different teams of script writers. They gave her some memorable lines too. Can’t really put them in a family friendly review though. Just keep watching for the scene where her line starts with “When you smell like…” and you’ll understand.

Once again I have to hand it to all of the hard bodied women who well and truly own their sexuality that agreed to appear in this movie. There were almost too many of them in this film. Yes, I’m a hetero guy and I’m saying that. It wasn’t until after the road rage scene that I even realized Alexa PenaVega’s “wardrobe” was really only chaps with a thong and only because they all turned around to walk to the van. Honest to God my first thought when I saw it was nothing sexual. It was “Damn! She’s gotta go sit down in that van which has been parked in the hot Mexico sun. Hope the seats aren’t vinyl.”

As a general rule sequels suck. We all know this. Thankfully this one only sucked until scene 12. After that it was much like the first movie. In fact, if they had only shot from scene 12 forward I might have given the movie 4 stars.

For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.