Once Upon a Time in Mexico
I went into this movie with high hopes. Sure, it’s gotten decidedly mixed reviews, but lots of great movies do. Johnny Depp really raised the bar earlier this summer with his amazing performance in The Pirates of the Caribbean, and Antonio Banderas is always a crack action film star, and Salma Hayek, well, Salma Hayek is proof of a benevolent God, as James Lileks said.
That said, I wasn’t expecting that much, either. Desperado was basically a high class B-movie, and El Mariachi was a low class C-movie. Not that that’s a bad thing. Sometimes you just want to go to a movie, eat some popcorn, watch some stunts, and cheer for the hero. Well, skip the popcorn. I wish they sold hard boiled eggs at movie theaters.
The handcuffed sequence that David Edelstein complained about really was as exciting as he thought it should be. I didn’t think it was confusing at all… and so it’s a flashback? Who cares? Well, to tell the truth, I did, but only because Hayek was totally wasted, only used in flashback, and even then without many lines or even that many sexy poses.
Depp was excellent, I thought, as the CIA agent who wanders around Mexico in a well-worn CIA t-shirt making shading deals with shadier characters. The supporting cast was both famous and good, with Willem Dafoe as the evil drug cartel leader based on the guy that died on the operating table a few years ago getting his face changed to unrecognizability. I think this was also a reprise of the evil character in El Mariachi. I never realized that Desperado was a prequel, and I guess that makes the new movie a loose remake.
Mickey Rourke plays Dafoe’s brutal, chihauhau toting henchman, and he’s great, too. He’s puffy, greasy, and oh-so-Rourkian. Sometimes you just have to roll the potato.
Enrique Eglesias sucked. So does Justin Timberlake.
Banderas was awesome as the tormented mariachi out for revenge, but that was expected. Banderas is pretty much a constant, he turns in decent performances in movies both good (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, The Mask of Zorro) and bad (Assassins, that awful one with Lucy Liu).
I’m not going to recommend this one either way, it’s not good enough to tell diehard action haters to go see like Pirates was, and it’s not bad enough to dissaude the action fans. Only thing I’ll say is that if you can’t stand blood and gore, this one’s not for you, it’s extremely brutal at times.
Popularity: 2% [?]
I’m reaching here — into the depths of hazy memory — but wasn’t Salma in “Breaking Up”? Call it a chick-flick, maybe, but I thought that was a really good movie.
If I’m wrong about her being in it, she’s still gorgeous and really fine in anything she does. The girl can act, unlike, say, Charlize Theron.
I saw this last night too… I had a group of like 25 nerds in front of me stinking up the joint, but other than that I absolutely loved the movie. Great flick all around, for sure. Only one particularly gory scene… no wait, 2, I just remembered another one. But I don’t wanna spoil it for anyone, it’s better left as a surprise.
Smarmy, Stinkin’, Son of a…
So, Kate thinks she can stump us with ess, does she? S is for Smelly. As in, ewww. S is…
Come on people this movie sucked, I could not wait until it ended. I want the directer to give me the 90 minutes of my life I wasted on this piece of crap. Johnny Depp walking around killing people after he had his eyes cut out was enough to make me cringe. The makers of this film have no idea how the real CIA operates they just want to show people how cool they are. Mickey Rourke is an embarassment to the man he once was, and Williem dafoe is so much better then this. I believe the directer had an epic in mind so why did he rush to make this pile of shit?
hey
that was such a cool movie. I know that the plot rambled but there was a lot of stuff to make up for it. Soecially when he loses his eyes though they could have done better make up like they did with the guy who got his knees blown up. Gouged out eyes don’t look like that but anyway it also had some cool lines like ummmmmmmmm. These are the only ones i remember Time to get messy and Kid, have you ever shot one of these before? Good. You shouldn’t because they are very, very bad… but right now I need you to kill that guy for me.
srry forgot e-mail lizdenekamp@hotmail.com
It’s my old old old one but i still look at it occasionaly