Machete Kills - The scoop and digest

For those who aren’t familiar with Grindhouse, this is the cinema sleaze from the 60’s and 70’s that polluted New York’s 42^nd Street.

Overflowing with sex, violence, blood, guts and gore, it was little surprise they offended with consummate ease.

To appreciate or to loathe, Trailer Classics allow the outrageous seediness of exploitation to be consumed at home.

These trashy schlock horrors inspired Rodriguez and Tarantino to create their own omelettes with Planet Terror and Death Proof respectively.

Both films have segments that pay homage to classic horrors including Evil Dead II, Night of the Living Dead and Zombie Flesh Eaters.

Hobo with a Shotgun saw Rutger Hauer as the titular vigilante delivering justice, one shell at a time.

Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving is in production and scheduled for release in 2014.  How the nubile trampoline enthusiast gets the point will make women cringe.

Allow me to pour celebration sauce all over Rodriguez’s second film from his own fake clip.

Plot details and/or spoilers shouldn't be taken seriously.

Apart from Mr Trejo, those fucking with the wrong Mexican include:

Danny Trejo – Machete Cortez

Michelle Rodriguez – Luz

Mel Gibson – Voz

Demian Bichir – Mendez

Sofia Vergara – Madame Desdemona

Amber Heard – Miss San Antonio

Lady Gaga/Cuba Gooding Jr/Antonio Banderas/Walt Goggins – El Camaleon

Tom Savini – Osiris

Alexa Vega – KillJoy

Vanessa Hudgens - Cereza

Charlie Sheen ‘Estevez’ - President Rathcock

We enjoy the trailer, Machete Kills Again… In Space.

This is presented as a violent Star Wars parody with blades growing into light sabers.  Also starring, Justin Bieber as a robot named Bleep and Leonardo Dicaprio as The Man in the Silver Mask.  Ha ha!

Actor subject to change - rated X.

Machete and Sartana witness army types unloading weapons with the cartel eager to buy.

The cartel arrive and gun down their would-be suppliers.  Machete and Sartana dish out some carnage but to their surprise, helicopters show up and masked men emerge.

Sartana is shot dead by the assumed leader and when Machete discovers her lifeless body, he’s a touch upset and captured by the unknowns.

While detained in the office of redneck Sheriff Doakes, he’s hung for murdering Sartana which doesn’t have the desired effect…

Doakes takes a phonecall from the President and releases Machete, who then snarls “This is Machete.”

At the Whitehouse, President Rathcock orders Machete to kill insane revolutionary Mendez who threatens to launch a missile unless corruption is ended in Mexico.  He reluctantly accepts and is granted U.S. citizenship.

Displaying a cleavage you can ski down, our man meets with Miss San Antonio and we see an assortment of weaponry including a larger than life Swiss army knife.

A woman named Cereza in Acapulco who should lead him to Mendez but before leaving, she wants to ‘physically’ experience the man, the legend.

PUT YOUR 3D GLASSES ON NOW flashes up which amusingly pulses as events in the obscured negative get more intense…

Arriving at the necessary location, he enters a brothel full of clothe shy hookers run by Madame Desdemona.

Machete produces a picture of Cereza which prompts a gun attack and locating the girl in question, they escape via a window.

Cereza reveals that she’s Madame’s daughter and they are escorted to Mendez’s haunt via speedboat.

While in a helicopter, a message is sent from Mendez and ends when henchman Zaror kills Cereza.

Mendez lives up to his reputation and warns that if he dies, the missile will be launched as the trigger is wired to his heart.

I’m pretty sure that Mendez openly informs that Voz Tech sold him the missile.

Machete ain’t the sort of animal to be caged and takes evasive action.  He takes Mendez hostage and the dilemma deepens when the pin is pulled to begin a 24 hour countdown.

After Machete forces Zaror to have an argument with helicopter blades, he boards and escapes with the recently unconscious Mendez.

Heading for the border, he takes care of more baddies and when Mendez comes to his senses, we see the other side of Mendez who is horrified about the whole heart situation and ordering the murder of Cereza.

Meanwhile, a mysterious assassin known as El Camaleon is in town and isn't up for making friends.  He removes a mask to reveal another face and makes off with a car that suddenly the original owner no longer needs.

By now, word has got around that Machete and Mendez heads are worth a cool $20m and as we learn that Madame despises men because her father sexually abused her as a child.

A harmless pervert feels the brunt of her anger that has his neck broke like a chicken.

It’s nothing personal pal.

When KillJoy tells Mrs Angry of the hit, she demands her machine gun brassiere…

El Camaleon satisfies further bloodlust and my dear, Lady Gaga is here.

Come on, she surely deserves a generous round of Applause.

Earlier, Mendez and Machete were under fire in a restaurant and the former was shot.  Machete uses his charm for his wound to be treated at a clinic but the mad bitch gang are in close proximity.

Thinking fast, blood bags are set to go bang in a microwave which acts as a decoy and explodes on the happy hookers.

Still, I bet they’ve been covered in worse substances.

Madame gives her underwear a blast but is thwarted when Machete uses a defibrillator on her bra to send her flying.

Soon after, Mendez and adopted minder scoot again.

Machete and Mendez acquire an armoured vehicle and flee heavy gunfire but on the open road, Madame and co, together with Gaga are not too far away.

Even with the use of Madame’s powerful and penetrating strap on, the necessary is done to evade and avoid a bloodbath as pursuing vehicles are ‘immobilised’.

The border is reached but the wall is insurmountable even for Machete.  Mendez tells of the wall’s weak spot which he happily exploits.

Trying to run, trying to hide, break on through to the other side…

Waiting for them is Doakes and assistant Clebourne.  Doakes is about to secure the bounty but Mendez kills them both.

Machete is suitably impressed…

Unfortunately, the tequila is permanently on ice as a gang of masks arrive, decapitate Mendez and fill Machete so full of lead that you could market him as a tea strainer.

One of the goons is Zaror but hang on a mo, how can this be?

Machete the invincible awakes in a healing pool, surrounded by the headless Mendez and his still beating heart in a jar.

This is overseen by Luther Voz, who gave him the missile.

After a tour of Voz Tech in his Star Wars inspired vehicle (which looks like something out of Austin Powers), Voz says that he has seen the end of the world and developing a rocket is his and anybody else’s ticket to safety.

He is shown an array of futuristic pop guns including a molecule blaster that isn’t quite ready yet.

It is quickly explained that Zaror is one of several genetically engineered super soldiers and Voz tests Machete’s resolve against these clones.

Escaping in the brum brum, Luz is the helicopter taxi pick up and flies him safely to their hideout.

Osiris can disarm the bomb but Machete is still pissed at him for killing Padre from the first film.  However, he’s a reformed man as wearing a dog collar isn't for the good of his health.

Miss Cleavage contacts him for a rendezvous and the double crossing bitch hands him over to Voz so she can be crowned Miss Texas.

Blam, blam, blam etc etc…

Machete is picked up by a trucker but El Camaleon is wearing a different face as flashback shows that Gaga had earlier acquired the vehicle.

He’s ordered to dig his own grave, but escapes down a tunnel while the assassin’s back is turned.

That proves to be his final act as border patrol line him with lead after he follows Machete.

Gatecrashing and disguised during Voz Tech’s little soiree, another massacre ensues.

Miss S.A opens fire and ensures that Luz won’t be able to keep an eye on her.

Machete and Osiris locate the heart but this is an organ to far…

Voz uses a molecule blaster but Osiris sacrifices himself to save Machete and they engage in their own bladed stand off.

Machete turns the tables by activating a flamethrower leaving Voz with more than a tan.  Retreating to another room, he dons a silver mask to hide his hideous disfigurement.

Is this meant to be a pseudo Friday the 13^th reference?

Although it’s the blind leading the blind, Luz fights Miss S.A and disables her with a punch to the girl’s bits and finishes matters with a bullet to the head.

Voz freezes Luz in carbonite and rounds up the sheep in his pen.  Machete takes a ride on the now launched rocket and simply cuts the wire bringing them both crashing down to earth.

Rathcock is there to greet and thanks him for saving the world.  Machete accepts the new mission of following Voz to space, which sets up the final instalment as we see him wearing an astronaut suit at Space X Station to destroy him once and for all…

Emulating the original in every department, only a dairymaid would enjoy milking the moment more than those participating.

Gibson revels as a pantomime villain and while you have to question the inclusion of Lady Gaga, it could’ve turned out far worse.

Other highlights include Demian Bichir and Amber Heard whose on screen presence wonderfully hams it up.

Wiping the blood from my brow, let’s analyse some purposeful references.

At the end of the first, narrative confirms that he will return in Machete Kills and teases Machete Kills Again.  I guess Rodriguez always planned a trilogy, but decided to add the Star Wars angle during the production of the sequel.

During the fight with Miss S.A, Michelle Rodriguez warns something like ‘they fucked with the wrong Mexican’, which is from the fake trailer.

I noticed direct script and prop bites used From Dusk Till Dawn.

At the brothel while searching for Cereza, Desdemona asks “Why this girl?” and he replies “Best in Mexico.”

Trejo’s Razor Charlie issues the same response when George Clooney’s Seth Gecko asks if the the Titty Twister serves food.

Desdemona’s alternative ‘strap on’ is identical to what Tom Savini’s Sex Machine famously attaches to his belt.

Now, it's my turn…

The idea of Mendez’s heart is hopefully coincidence but is probably a complete rip off of Pete Travis’s Dredd as Ma-Ma has the same deterrent, only on her wrist.

Also, John Matrix (Schwarzenegger) in Commando has 11 hours to rescue his daughter in the fictional country of Val Verde.

For the briefest of moments, one scene reminds of Mortal Kombat II and Baraka’s ‘Shredder’ special.

What the fuck?  Well, here’s why.

When fighting the ‘original’ Zaror, Machete introduces the Swiss army knife to his belly.

As you’re desperately looking up a vid of ‘that’ move, base my opinion on principle.

The women are of course gorgeous, the acting is purposely woeful and with gloriously gratuitous violence, Rodriguez successfully serves up a satisfying dish of more ridiculous entertainment.