Once Upon A Time In Mexico
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The most disturbing thing about this film was the woman sitting behind me in the theater who brought her daughter. Maybe she saw that this movie was written and directed by the same guy who wrote and directed the "Spy Kids" movie, and figured that it would be fine for children, despite the R rating. Actually, this movie is much closer to "From Dusk to Dawn" than "Spy Kids." Come to think of it, it's a lot like "Desperado," which is Robert Rodriguez's big-budget remake of "El Mariachi," which is not surprising, since this is billed as the third in the series. The similarities aren't in the story, though, since the first two are simple tales of murder and revenge. "Once Upon A Time..." has a COMPLEX story of murder, revenge, assassination plots, and betrayal, as an homage to the Sergio Leone western with a similar name. Like his previous work, the visuals are lush, the action near-constant, and the body count comparable to a Schwarzenegger film. There are mercifully few pauses for the exposition needed to explain the convoluted plot. Obviously great thought went into weaving the multiple characters into the story lines, but it didn't make me care about it, so I didn't. Despite the presence of complex narrative, this movie is really about lavish gunfights, chases, ambushes and explosions set to a thrilling soundtrack. If things get slow, BOOM!, something blows up really big. Or dozens of henchmen pop up with automatic weapons blazing. This is not a movie for those who can't handle gratuitous violence. Or gore. Or comforting the child they brought along after the nightmares of slaughtered minions, plastic surgery gone horribly wrong and something particularly nasty involving eyes.
If you liked the movies below, you'll probably like this one (and visa versa):
Eight-Facet Info Rating, rated on a scale of 0 (None) to 4 (Lots!)): |