| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Hartlaub
Excellent.
|
| 89 |
Austin Chronicle
The movie gets goofy from time to time -- as when payola arrives in a vintage "Clash of the Titans lunchbox -- but the filmmakers and cast have the style and the swagger to back it up.
|
| 80 |
Salon.com
Make no mistake, this movie is a mess. But, wow, what a mess! It's an exploding piñata, full of low comedy and high drama, deliriously colorful fight scenes and vehicle chases.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Proves to be a whiz-bang kick in the pants.
|
| 80 |
Time
It's an exercise in style by Robert Rodriguez and not to be taken any more (or less) seriously than his giddy "Spy Kids" movies.
|
| 80 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Jean Oppenheimer
Affectionately conceived, imaginatively staged and highly entertaining.
|
| 75 |
ReelViews
A bloody fairy tale with no moral and a lot of juice.
|
| 75 |
USA Today
Rodriguez is such a visual stylist, and the violence is so cartoonish, that the flurry of whizzing bullets and growing pile of bodies is not as offensive as it might be.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
I understood the general outlines of the story, I liked the bold strokes he uses to create the characters, and I was amused by the camera work, which includes a lot of shots that are about themselves.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
It's the addition of Depp's corrupt CIA agent, Sands, that really makes this violent, over-the-top action film, with its maze-like plot, sing.
|
| 75 |
Entertainment Weekly
In its wildly overwrought, burrito-Western way, is about as close to a home movie as you're likely to see in a megaplex.
|
| 75 |
Rolling Stone
You don't want to miss Depp in this movie -- he knocks it out of the park.
|
| 70 |
Dallas Observer
God bless Johnny Depp. For the second time this year, the man has almost single-handedly redeemed an action movie that would otherwise be indistinguishable from the pack.
|
| 70 |
LA Weekly
The movie is stolen by the gorgeous, droll and hilarious Depp. The movie crackles when he's onscreen and only fitfully sparks when he's not.
|
| 70 |
Variety
Evokes the mythic feel of Sergio Leone Westerns. Despite a convoluted plot that begs for cleaner lines, the wild shoot-outs, cartoonish violence and charismatic cast should lure action fans to theaters.
|
| 67 |
Portland Oregonian
You ride along with a movie like this with a big, dumb grin on your face and no guilt. Not one of this summer's megabucks movies felt this frisky or fun.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
It's a grisly, chuckling cartoon made on shots of tequila, Red Bull, and Sergio Leone.
|
| 63 |
Miami Herald
If not exactly epic, the movie is certainly the biggest and most complex of Rodriguez's Mariachi trilogy, which began in "El Mariachi" and continued in "Desperado."
|
| 63 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Starts having the same effect as one too many tequilas: the Hong Kong-style stunts, the goofy wisecracks, the foxy presence of Eva Mendes -- all of it becomes blurry and numbing.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Tribune
An epic unhinged, and while its best sections suggest a Loony Tune done by Sam Peckinpah and Emilio Fernandez, "Mexico" needs to be even crazier than it is.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
Banderas inhabits the role of the mariachi with a feral grace undimished by the seven-year gap between films.
|
| 50 |
New York Daily News
Paying homage to Sergio Leone, "Mexico" aims too high and, in the process, becomes more like every generic, overplotted drug-cartel-and-revenge flick out there.
|
| 50 |
Washington Post
However many millions of dollars Rodriguez set aside for blanks and exploding squibs was a waste. Depp's salary, on the other hand, was money well spent.
|
| 50 |
Film Threat
Kevin Carr
If only there had been more Salma Hayek.
|
| 50 |
Premiere
The entire film is a thrown-together collection of gunfights and in-jokes. The film is more concerned with expanding this universe of seedy tequila bars and dusty city streets than it is in telling a narrative story.
|
| 50 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
A clear case of huevos con hubris.
|
| 40 |
Los Angeles Times
Depp's performance reminds us that, yeah, it's only a movie -- just not a good one.
|
| 40 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
An overstuffed would-be epic.
|
| 40 |
Village Voice
Having already looted the Peckinpah and spaghetti-western archives, the director now quotes his own quotations, in service of not a sequel but a vociferous reiteration.
|
| 38 |
Baltimore Sun
Needs a story.
|
| 30 |
Chicago Reader
The result is a dull and campy 97-minute bloodbath offering little distinction between good guys and bad.
|
| 30 |
Slate
The whole movie is like that: showy stunts, explosions, over-the-top acting, fiesta colors, lurid angles, and a sense of nothing--nada--at stake.
|
| 30 |
The New York Times
The only thing missing is a coherent story -- or even, for that matter, an interesting idea for one.
|
| 25 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The film's deliberately overblown cartoonishness and its gleefully pandering adolescent cruelty never blend into the enjoyable style of, say, a good spaghetti western (Rodriguez's acknowledged model), or even a bad Quentin Tarantino movie.
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