Jessica Alba vs. Pronunciation

Machete - it's not that good. For a movie that started out SO strongly, it fizzled pretty quickly. I guess when you start with a triple beheading it's hard to sustain that level of awesome for very long, but you could try a little harder to exhaust your audience's smile muscles. After a really strong opening sequence, the movie just plods along, unable to decide whether it's a fun movie that doesn't take itself too seriously or if it really wants to deliver a social message. In the end, it does neither. There are definitely flashes of greatness, but those are less fun to talk about than the things I didn't like. So I'm going to do just that, starting with Jessica Alba.



Jessica Alba is very pretty. No one in their right mind would deny that. Some may say she's nearly a perfect physical specimen. Fine. But why does that mean she gets to be in movies? If she has to be in movies, can't she just walk through the shot in every scene and wave at the camera? Maybe even blow a kiss or something? That would be fine with me. It's when she opens her mouth that she gets in over her head. In fact, if Ms. Alba were to just walk through blowing kisses every now and then, the movie would have been much better in my estimation because it could unburden itself of some crappy acting, and at least 50% of the audience members would leave with a warm feeling in their hearts and loins.

Another problem I found with this movie was Steven Seagal. For starters, his hair is a mess and his eyes are too small for his head. The hair is distracting enough and then his wardrobe just compounds it. I think that in order to save a little coin they must have let him bring his own clothes and wear them for the entire film shoot. There's nothing wrong with being frugal, but the problem with this approach arises when your actor dresses like Kim Jong-il. Now that I'm thinking about it, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Seagal was modeling his whole role after Kim because the hair is a respectable homage as well. In any case, neither is appropriate for the role of Mexican drug king-pin; no self respecting drug lord wants to look like Kim Jong-il.

This isn't to say the movie was terrible because it certainly wasn't. It just wasn't fun enough or good enough to overcome some serious weaknesses. The action scenes, with one sloppy exception, were quite fun. You get improvised use of weapons (weed eater to the face!), tons of blood and guts, and some very attractive people kicking ass wearing very little clothing. You get to see Lindsay Lohan's boobs - a lot! The problem is that these parts are not enough to make up for cheap plot devices, inconsistency of message, Steven Seagal's hair, and Jessica Alba's inability to say "Machete" the same way twice.