LogFAQs > #957065677

Inviso: As a sequel to El Mariachi, completely recasting the main character with Antonio Banderas, Desperado is great. Im not gonna call it high cinema or anything like that, but its the perfect kind of action schlock that Im unable to hate too too much. Its convenient that Quentin Tarantino cameos in the film, because the style of the dialogue and general storytelling is reminiscent of a Tarantino movie. Steve Buscemis multiple scenes of neuroses and storytelling were great, and the action scenes felt high-paced enough to sell the intensity they were going for, while still managing to work some comedic aspects into them. It was also pretty hilarious how everything kept ramping up and ramping up and it turns out that Banderas and the bad guy were unwittingly brothers the whole time, following by a duo of new mariachi killers with a rocket launcher and machine guns. That whole ending sequence was insane in the best possible way, and it capped off a fun movie.

CoolCly: Steve Buscemi's intro scene is fun - and he feels like the main character from the first movie. Way more so than Antonio Banderas

What a strange choice to recreate the final confrontation of El Mariachi with the F list actors except with Antonio Banderas it feels very at odds.

Quentin Tarantino had a pretty good scene.

Antonio Banderas shooting up the bar was awesome, and the scene of him and the last guy shooting empty guns at eachother was a lot of fun.

Calling in the Mariachi Avengers at the end was ridiculous. I mean it was cool as hell and a lot of fun so im fine with it in general but it makes the idea of El Mariachi being the origin story even more ridiculous and pointless. Kinda annoying that they show up to help and then just die in the shootout though. Also the kid that just hangs around every scene for no reason getting shot was pretty ehh.

The villian was good - in El Mariachi, I was often thinking what a joke the villain was, and what an actual good version of him would look like. I basically imagined this guy - and that's what he is. A working version of the El Mariachi villain, in charisma, intimidation, dangerousness, and they even managed to give him personal stakes with the Mariachi at the very end.

Overall, this feels like a remake of El Mariachi except actually good and fun. Theres a lot of senseless violence, but its done in such fun and inventive ways that it keeps you engaged. I really enjoyed this movie, despite so much not making sense.

This is a mexican crime drama though, not a western. Don't agree with it being in this list.

7.8/10

KBM: It's basically the first movie again, but with more budget, more explosions, and less substance when it comes to the plot and characters. Banderas is great, as always, but also loses that everyman flair that Carlos Gallardo had in the part. And as far as the action scenes went, this was the one of the Mexico trilogy where things just kind of felt a bit repetitive at times a new character would show up, be cool for like five minutes, and then die, and then another new character would show up, be cool for five minutes, and then die, rinse and repeat. I do have to give a shout-out to Joaquim de Almeida as the villain, though (Ramon Salazar himself the guy plays a truly memorable villain).

Johnbobb: I like Robert Rodriguez a lot, and you can see so much of what would eventually become so heavily associated with him. Absurd gunfights, killer soundtracks, Quentin Tarantino. It's all here, but it's also pretty apparent that this was his early work, as a lot of his style is present but as of yet undefined. The story and most of the characters are nothing special, leading to some bland lulls between the action-packed shoot-ups that Rodriguez clearly wanted to focus on but wanted to stretch out into a movie.

Karo: The gunslinging mariachi singer returns to mindlessly kick some more ass, this time with some semblance of a budget.
Hey, you think that having more money would be an improvement, right? Oh you sweet summer child. The success of the first movie only emboldens Rodriguez to go further up his own ass with his idiocy and squeeze out this mess of stilted dialogue, bizarre character behavior and random porno music riffs.
So what happens is Mariachi rampages through mexico, murdering everyone who might have talked to Moco once, and pursues this mysterious 'Bucho' character, who actually had very little to do with his girl's death.
But hey, where we're going we don't need logic or coherent writing, only vague reasoning for people to gun down each other arbitrarily in increasingly cringey stupidity that seems born from the mind of an adolescent school shooter wannabe.
So the protagonist shoots many cartel thugs and the occasional small child. Idiotic random guitar case killer friends just come out of nowhere and do dumb things because the movie is dumb. Bucho is actually secretly the Mariachi's brother because why the fuck not at this point.
In this trainwreck there is only one constant, and that is Desperado es el stupido.

Poke: Steve Buscemi and Quentin Tarantino added makes this, by default, the best of the Mariachi trilogy. But thats not saying much.
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Bear Bro
The Empire of Silence