Film Review | Machete (2010)

Once upon a time, Machete was a film that existed only as a "fake" trailer presented between Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof in the pair's double feature homage Grindhouse. Featured alongside trailers for other fictitious features such as Werewolf Women Of The SS (Rob Zombie's tribute to Nazi exploitation flicks) and Thanksgiving (Eli Roth's brutal holiday-centric slasher parody), Machete ended up as the first of these ideas to be fleshed out into a real film. Working backwards from an idea that was intentionally thin on plot and excessive when it came to violence and action, Rodriguez's "Mexploitation" pastiche could - and by rights should - have ended up as a total mess. In the hands of another director, it almost certainly would have. But whilst it lacks the refinement and sheer quality of the director's best work, Machete is hugely enjoyable.

Danny Trejo as the titular hero both looks and acts the part perfectly, coming across like a Hispanic John McClane with the vocal range of Schwarzenegger's Terminator and the allure of James Bond. The rest of the cast is as game as is necessary, with big names such as Steven Seagal and Robert De Niro giving it their hammy all.

The story is somewhat overstretched for the one hour and forty five minutes Machete runs for, and at times Rodriguez threatens to make things more complicated than they need to be for a film of this nature. There are also social and political messages running underneath much of what is presented, which thankfully only threatens to take over the fun on two or three occasions. Most importantly, Rodriguez remembers throughout what Machete needs as its focus: balls to the wall action. And by heck, the director shows he knows how to put together a decent extreme action sequence. The film's opening scene is pure exploitation gold, and the fire-powered finale can't help but bring a gleeful grin to your face.

Whilst Machete is never likely to be considered a Rodriguez classic, falling short of achieving the pulpy heights of Sin City or the exquisite level of homage seen in Planet Terror, it's a consistently entertaining, no-nonsense action film packed with plenty of guns, fights, explosions and - perhaps least expectedly - talent. Admit it: a film featuring Cheech Marin as a twin shotgun toting priest has got to be worth a look.

7/10

Film Review | Cars (2006)

Despite the lukewarm reception I gave more recent Pixar offering Cars 2, I've actually been looking forward to revisiting the original film for some time. Cars is a film that has in the past pulled me in two different directions: on one hand, it boasts one of the most impressive voice casts of any Pixar film, with cinematic heavyweights rubbing shoulders (or should that be bumpers?) with contemporary Hollywood talents; on the other, it's a film which aesthetically feels the most "kiddie" of all the studio's works, perhaps surprisingly even more so than Toy Story. It's a bipartite structure which frustratingly sat no easier with me on a fresh viewing.

Cars focuses on Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), a talented rookie racing car determined to win a lucrative sponsorship deal with fuel company Dinoco in order to elevate himself to superstardom. En route to California to compete in the final of the Piston Cup, McQueen becomes stranded in the sleepy town of Radiator Springs where he gets to know a variety of characters, including the simple-minded Mater (Larry The Cable Guy) and gruff Doc Hudson (Paul Newman).

From an artistic perspective, Cars is inferior to the studio's earlier works, never matching the beautiful scenery of Finding Nemo or striking visuals of The Incredibles. The vehicular characters lack a great deal of the warmth and heart of many of Pixar's other creations, giving the Cars universe a layer of artificiality that takes too hefty a portion of the film's near two hour running time to penetrate.

The voice cast is indeed impressive, but is utilised to varying degrees of success. Wilson's vocal chords suit Lightning McQueen just as perfectly as Hanks and Allen fit Woody and Buzz, but his performance is only perfunctory and never memorable. Newman is unsurprisingly the casting highlight as Doc Hudson; it's just a shame that the character's story arc feels both underdeveloped and somewhat clichéd. Elsewhere, Bonnie Hunt's Sally is forgettable, the talents of the likes of George Carlin and Michael Keaton are almost entirely wasted, and Larry The Cable Guy's Mater wins the prize for most irritating Pixar character ever created, grating as he does in every scene.

It's a shame that Cars is such an underwhelming experience, as nestled around two thirds into the film's running time is a segment which reveals a glimpse of the true Pixar spirit of film-making when Radiator Springs' past as a bustling stopover on Route 66 is brought to life through a charming and emotional montage. This is surely the film director John Lasseter initially set out to make: an epitaph to the pure and simple pleasures of smalltown USA, and a love story to the ever-eroding cultural heritage of a country too quick to bulldoze and tarmac over both its history and geography. It's a sequence which gives Cars a much-needed boost, far more effective than the high-octane race sequences (never nearly as exciting as you would expect them to be) that bookend the film. Somewhere along the line, Lasseter allowed the heart of his story to become overcrowded with unsophisticated artifice. Maybe that's Cars' biggest failing. Or maybe talking automobiles inhabiting their own version of our world was never more than just an okay idea in the first place.

6/10