Rodriguez retreats into gruesome violence and flaccid comedy, grasping feebly for topical relevance...

| Aug 10, 2022

The film has some outrageously enjoyable set-pieces, but overall, the convoluted plot and Rodriguez' agenda spoil the fun.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 29, 2010

[A] tongue-in-cheek, knife-in-guts action thriller...

| Nov 29, 2010

This gleefully excessive pastiche of an exploitation picture delivers everything promised by its own faux trailer.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 29, 2010

Basically very silly and wastes the time of some talented celebrities (including Lindsay Lohan, as an addled nymphet). But it has its moments.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 29, 2010

All set up and no punchline.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 29, 2010

Machite.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 20, 2010

Machete is essentially a fabulously fun cheap-thrill ride of fights, chases, muzzle flash, sexy ladies and over-acting designed to please the genre-loving generation of filmgoers unfortunate enough to have been born after the demise of the drive in.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 10, 2010

The movie is ham-handed, repetitive, and rhythm-less -- a mess that's uglier than its hero and nowhere near as likable.

Full Review | Sep 7, 2010

All of this is very cool, but I'm not entirely sure it's entertaining.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 3, 2010

Rodriguez plans "Machete" sequels. Here's hoping the next is sharper and cuts closer to the bone.

Full Review | Sep 3, 2010

It's basically a one-joke exercise heading toward the inevitable big battle between vigilantes and Mexicans. There's lots of gore, flesh and fun along the way, but it gets repetitious.

| Original Score: B- | Sep 3, 2010

There are film fans and there are film fetishists, and Robert Rodriguez might be the most hardcore film fetishist of all.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 3, 2010

Sorry, mis amigos, wrong decades. The modern B-movie would seem to be devoted to self-conscious fun. More laughs, but fewer real chills.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 3, 2010

Machete may not be all that original, but it is fresh -- fresh as a steel blade to the gut.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 3, 2010

In patches, it is entertaining and ingenious. However, the director seems fatally uncertain whether he is making a full-blown action movie or a spoof.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 3, 2010

The pace is swift, the tone playful, the screenplay peppered with one-liners.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 3, 2010

It's a movie that just wants to have fun. To a large degree, it succeeds.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 3, 2010

[It] may be a weird combo of speechy and pulpy but it's also what another all-star bloodbath, The Expendables, should have been -- self-aware, flashy and fun.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 3, 2010

Machete makes no apologies for its absurdities or silliness, making it an over-the-top thrill ride.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 3, 2010