Imagine with me for a second. You're on a blind date. It ends up being the perfect date. A ridiculously sexy woman, at your all-time favorite place to eat. For the first half hour, the date goes great. You can really connect with this woman, and she seems into you, too. Then just before the food is served, she gets up, walks over to you, andBAM!out of nowhere, she kicks you in the groin. Over and over again. She professes that she has hated your utter being all along. You'd get up and walk away, right? Maybe file a lawsuit? Well, you can't walk away. You can't because you have to write a review. That's exactly how I feel right now typing this about Desperado. The first half hour of the film is great: great action, great pulp dialogue scenes, great sense of style. Then out of nowhere, Rodriguez feels the need to add a cliché, predictable revenge plot line and focus the other 3/4s of the movie about it. I felt betrayed. I wished I could turn it off, but, alas, I couldn't otherwise I couldn't be typing this. I wasted my time. I struggled hard to even stay awake. How could a promising director like Rodriguez take such a promising beginning, then completely ruin it by forcing a severely predictable plot into the awesome pointless action?
People compare Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino as if their names and movies are interchangeable, and that's an absolute joke. Though they contentiously work together, Rodriguez never has andjudging by the synopsizes for his upcoming filmsnever will understand originality, whereas Tarantino has proved himself to be the exact opposite. I've never once seen a Rodriguez film that underlines this fact more than Desperado. The plot line is beyond unoriginal, and passes into the so-cliché-it's-laughable territory. Am I really the only person who is sick of revenge movies that all follow through exactly the same way, with the exact same scenes, and the exact same endings? If you've seen one, you've seen them all. There is no reason to watch this movie, because there is absolutely nothing you haven't seen before, and seen better. Go do the laundry or something.
This painfully unoriginal, formulaic plot line is why the entertainment value comes to a screeching halt mid-movie. Instead of continuing the nihilistic mass gunfightsFUNRodriguez does what he does best, and adds a cliché plot that amounts to about as much entertainment value as a staring at a dead tree stumpNOT FUN. It's almost humorous, the joke that Tarantino's character says has a more complex plot than the film itself.
And if creating a fun action movie wasn't the point here, may I ask what was? Nihilism is something that filmmakers don't understand, but it's something that the audience of this particular film wants. We didn't come to see a great opening, then a boring paint-by-the-numbers plot line unravel. As stylish and cool as this movie may be, it fails understand its target audience. Again, nihilism is something Quentin Tarantino has always understood, and it's most evident in Pulp Fiction. As much as these two work together, why can't Rodriguez just . . . get it? There is absolutely no excuse for him not to think of more original plots, and, if not, then understand and give his audience the nihilism it wants. Instead, he just rolls around in Hollywood clichés and puts out safe, predictable movies. What a sad waste of talent.
The only sole good thing I can say about Desperado is that the Mexican setting is pretty cool. It's filmed well. And that's all.
Overall, Desperado is one of those watch-once-then-forget-about movies, if not a little lower. It isn't the absolute worst movie out there, but it isn't anything that it could have been. It isn't fun enough to be a midnight movie with friends, and it isn't original enough to be taken as a serious story. It's just middle ground average. If I even remember a single generic scene in an hour from now, I'll be surprised.
0/10
People compare Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino as if their names and movies are interchangeable, and that's an absolute joke. Though they contentiously work together, Rodriguez never has andjudging by the synopsizes for his upcoming filmsnever will understand originality, whereas Tarantino has proved himself to be the exact opposite. I've never once seen a Rodriguez film that underlines this fact more than Desperado. The plot line is beyond unoriginal, and passes into the so-cliché-it's-laughable territory. Am I really the only person who is sick of revenge movies that all follow through exactly the same way, with the exact same scenes, and the exact same endings? If you've seen one, you've seen them all. There is no reason to watch this movie, because there is absolutely nothing you haven't seen before, and seen better. Go do the laundry or something.
This painfully unoriginal, formulaic plot line is why the entertainment value comes to a screeching halt mid-movie. Instead of continuing the nihilistic mass gunfightsFUNRodriguez does what he does best, and adds a cliché plot that amounts to about as much entertainment value as a staring at a dead tree stumpNOT FUN. It's almost humorous, the joke that Tarantino's character says has a more complex plot than the film itself.
And if creating a fun action movie wasn't the point here, may I ask what was? Nihilism is something that filmmakers don't understand, but it's something that the audience of this particular film wants. We didn't come to see a great opening, then a boring paint-by-the-numbers plot line unravel. As stylish and cool as this movie may be, it fails understand its target audience. Again, nihilism is something Quentin Tarantino has always understood, and it's most evident in Pulp Fiction. As much as these two work together, why can't Rodriguez just . . . get it? There is absolutely no excuse for him not to think of more original plots, and, if not, then understand and give his audience the nihilism it wants. Instead, he just rolls around in Hollywood clichés and puts out safe, predictable movies. What a sad waste of talent.
The only sole good thing I can say about Desperado is that the Mexican setting is pretty cool. It's filmed well. And that's all.
Overall, Desperado is one of those watch-once-then-forget-about movies, if not a little lower. It isn't the absolute worst movie out there, but it isn't anything that it could have been. It isn't fun enough to be a midnight movie with friends, and it isn't original enough to be taken as a serious story. It's just middle ground average. If I even remember a single generic scene in an hour from now, I'll be surprised.
0/10