Director Robert Rodriguez is one of those guys who is perfectly capable of making a movie in good taste, but he refuses to do so with every fiber of his being (even his movies for little kids play like some psychedelic voyage into the fourth dimension). Case in point: the new poster for “Machete Kills,” the follow-up to his 2010 feature “Machete,” which was based on a fake trailer Rodriguez created for his double-feature with Quentin Tarantino, “Grindhouse” (an experience Tarantino barely seems to acknowledge). This poster has everything: a triple-bladed sword, Michelle Rodriguez rocking an eye-patch, grade-A slimeballs Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson looking downright stoic, Lady Gaga in an old timey bathing suit, and lots and lots of fire. When Danny Trejo is the least outrageous thing on the poster, you can understand the level of insanity on display. Somewhere, Photoshop has quietly hung itself. Read on to see the poster in all of its glory, plus the first look at Mel Gibson’s villainous bad guy and even more outrageous photos.
You’re not going to get a real sense of the movie’s plot based on these photos, probably because there isn’t much to the movie’s plot. It supposedly involves the President of the United States (played by Charlie Sheen, or as he’s known in Machete-land, Carlos Estevez) tasking Machete with taking down an evil billionaire (Mel Gibson) who plans on launching some kind of high-tech space weapon. So there’s that.
The photos show off much of the cast, including Amber Heard as a character called Miss San Antonio (awesome), returning cast member Michelle Rodriguez in drag (fulfilling a fantasy we never knew we had), make-up effects dark wizard Tom Savini as Machete’s new cohort (awesome x 2), and Mel Gibson standing in front of what appears to be a human heart. Whatever. It’s “Machete Kills.”
This installment supposedly leads directly into a third film called “Machete Kills… In Space.” In a weird way it makes sense: the only way Robert Rodriguez could get more over-the-top was to leave earth entirely and set a movie in space.
“Machete Kills” opens on October 11th.
[Poster via Fandango]
