Machete: a review

I. love. horror. movies.  Srsly love them.  In October, in celebration of Halloween, I watch a horror movie or Halloween themed show or movie every night for the entire month.

Now, you are probably wondering what any of this has to do with Machete?  Well, those of you that are familiar with the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino collaboration Grindhouse, would know that Machete is based off of a "fake" movie trailer that was shown between the two main features:  Planet Terror and Death Proof.

So, I, being the horror movie and Robert Rodriguez fan that I am, have known about, and been anticipating Machete for awhile now.  Then I found out through the blogosphere, and elsewhere, that Rodriquez was going to take his fun, campy, movie concept and make it a mouthpiece for the illegal alien situation.  That pissed me off.  Not gonna lie.  I get it, movie makers are allowed to be political, everyone's allowed to be political, blah blah blah.

It was with much trepidation that I agreed to go see Machete with my boyfriend last weekend.  I have to say that I am glad I went.  Yes, there was some political crap in there, but the movie was so over the top that the "political" message wasn't really anything that anyone could have been very offended by.  Also, there was lots of fun blood and guts to get in the way of said political message.  Dude uses a weed whacker at one point in time as a weapon.

There are also lots of fun little Rodriquez-y things in the movie that fans of his will recognize.  Someone loses an eye, one of the kids from Spy Kids has a supporting role, things like that.  And, while I loved Planet Terror, I think in some ways this is a much more successful homage to his roots.  I could still see hints of El Mariachi in this movie, even though Machete obviously had a MUCH bigger budget, and you know was shot in English and all.

In the end, I was very impressed with the movie, and enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.