This movie is insane. I don't know why I love this film so much. It's a comedy, drama, action, adventure, crime, western, romance and I love it! Honestly I would give this film a 10/10 but I try to keep my reviews fair.
So let's go over the good things first because there's a lot. All the performances are very convincing considering the tone and goof setting they are placed in. Almost every character has a comedic moment. No one ever underplays it to the point of boredom but no one overplays to the point where it's annoying. It's a convincing action movie and a convincing comedy. There are memorable jokes and funny lines. everyone has a funny line but, in terms of comedy Johnny Depp steals the show. The action is awesome. It's over the top and intense and I love it. In terms of action Antonio steals the show. (Or as I like to call him Mexican John Wick). There is crazy !@#%$ going on every 10 minutes or so. Johnny Depp has a fake arm and shoots people with his real arm, Johnny Depp likes the pork he's eating and shoots the cook that made it for no reason, there's flamethrower guitars, gun guitars. a guy gets shot by 3 double barrel shotguns at once and flies back, Johnny Depp looses his eyes and there's blood pouring out, There's a flipping war during the third act, Johnny Depp tells a 10 year old boy to F off and so much more, it was so epic. The setting, costume design etc. There isn't much to say other than the fact that the costume design and makeup (especially for Johnny Depp's eyes) is fantastic. The set design and scale of the city is great. The drama aspect is competent but nothing out of the ordinary.
Let's get into bad things now. While this film succeeds at the comedy and action aspects it doesn't excel as much with the drama aspect. The story (which is the drama part) that is holding this movie together isn't as good as it could have been. The plot is unnecessarily complicated. So many people die and come back to life. And Mickey Rourke has this whole subplot where he's american and he wants to leave Mexico and team up with the FBI agent. The cop girl is the daughter of Willem Dafoe for no reason. and another problem I have with this movie is that there are too many characters. This kind of falls into the drama aspect. If you want to make a good drama you have to develop the characters and their relationships for you to care about them and the story. Once Upon a Time in Mexico fails at this. For Example: Johnny Depp is dating this police officer lady (who is the daughter of Willem Dafoe) and we only see one scene of them talking and that's it. Or how the retired FBI agent says that the Willem Dafoe killed his partner, but we never see his partner so we don't care. It gets to the point where the writer doesn't know what to do with all these people so most of them just die at the end of the movie. Also since there are so many characters this results in a lot of one note stereotypes like; the guy who drinks a lot, the independent woman and evil villian #456.
Overall I really had a fun time watching this. I would highly recommend this film. I can't wait to see it in the future. It succeeds at mostly everything it's trying to do. It's funny, action packed and has great performances, cinematography, set design, direction, competent script and so on. As of now I give Once Upon a Time in Mexico a 7/10 but I could see it going up to an 8 or down to a 6. Really great movie.
So let's go over the good things first because there's a lot. All the performances are very convincing considering the tone and goof setting they are placed in. Almost every character has a comedic moment. No one ever underplays it to the point of boredom but no one overplays to the point where it's annoying. It's a convincing action movie and a convincing comedy. There are memorable jokes and funny lines. everyone has a funny line but, in terms of comedy Johnny Depp steals the show. The action is awesome. It's over the top and intense and I love it. In terms of action Antonio steals the show. (Or as I like to call him Mexican John Wick). There is crazy !@#%$ going on every 10 minutes or so. Johnny Depp has a fake arm and shoots people with his real arm, Johnny Depp likes the pork he's eating and shoots the cook that made it for no reason, there's flamethrower guitars, gun guitars. a guy gets shot by 3 double barrel shotguns at once and flies back, Johnny Depp looses his eyes and there's blood pouring out, There's a flipping war during the third act, Johnny Depp tells a 10 year old boy to F off and so much more, it was so epic. The setting, costume design etc. There isn't much to say other than the fact that the costume design and makeup (especially for Johnny Depp's eyes) is fantastic. The set design and scale of the city is great. The drama aspect is competent but nothing out of the ordinary.
Let's get into bad things now. While this film succeeds at the comedy and action aspects it doesn't excel as much with the drama aspect. The story (which is the drama part) that is holding this movie together isn't as good as it could have been. The plot is unnecessarily complicated. So many people die and come back to life. And Mickey Rourke has this whole subplot where he's american and he wants to leave Mexico and team up with the FBI agent. The cop girl is the daughter of Willem Dafoe for no reason. and another problem I have with this movie is that there are too many characters. This kind of falls into the drama aspect. If you want to make a good drama you have to develop the characters and their relationships for you to care about them and the story. Once Upon a Time in Mexico fails at this. For Example: Johnny Depp is dating this police officer lady (who is the daughter of Willem Dafoe) and we only see one scene of them talking and that's it. Or how the retired FBI agent says that the Willem Dafoe killed his partner, but we never see his partner so we don't care. It gets to the point where the writer doesn't know what to do with all these people so most of them just die at the end of the movie. Also since there are so many characters this results in a lot of one note stereotypes like; the guy who drinks a lot, the independent woman and evil villian #456.
Overall I really had a fun time watching this. I would highly recommend this film. I can't wait to see it in the future. It succeeds at mostly everything it's trying to do. It's funny, action packed and has great performances, cinematography, set design, direction, competent script and so on. As of now I give Once Upon a Time in Mexico a 7/10 but I could see it going up to an 8 or down to a 6. Really great movie.