"Machete Kills" (The Guardian 11/10/13)

Machete Kills (15) 107 mins **

2010’s Machete stretched a joke trailer in Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse collaboration into spottily amusing mock-schlock; it’s here stretched further still – dispatching Danny Trejo’s Latino avenger first to Washington, then into space – with fewer laughs. The original’s savvy social subtexts are gone, obscured by nudging cameos that at their most desperate (hitwoman Lady GaGa, Charlie Sheen as the President) plunge the franchise in the Scary Movies’ guttural direction. The odd vivid shot reminds you of Rodriguez’s dynamic visual imagination, but also what it’s wasted on here: a project every bit as indifferent as some of the trash that inspired it.

Machete Kills is in cinemas nationwide.