Review of Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) by Ethan B — 26 Mar 2014

Not as mindless as it probably should be, the final act in Rodriguez' Mexico Trilogy is only slightly better than the previous film, Desperado. The movie has some really good scenes and lines, but the screenplay is full of things that don't make sense at times. Like, why were they fighting with Marquez to begin with? And when and why was Carolina with Marquez? And why was there hardly any emphasis on their daughter and her being murdered? El Mariachi seemed more concerned about his wife and appeared to have forgotten that his daughter was also killed. A lot was happening in this film and there seemed to not be enough initial motive for the characters besides the fact that this film was about to happen. However, Once Upon a Time in Mexico was more enjoyable than the 2nd act of this trilogy and the acting and characters were amazing. This is definitely the creepiest of all three films. Depp stole the show as Sands and a lot of the supporting characters were very interesting and good. However, the main character hardly seemed to get very much screen time. Also, I kinda wished that they had revisited the boy from the 2nd film that El Mariachi saved and brought to the hospital. It would have been nice to see some of that carryover from the previous movie.

After so much being wrong with this film, I still couldn't help but get into it because Rodriguez has strung together a technical masterpiece here.

Twizard Rating: 78.