Once Upon a Time in Mexico

Robert Rodriguez brings out the big guns in the final instalment of his ‘Mexico Trilogy’, lavishly serving more of the cartoonish, over-the-top action established in ‘Desperado’. Rodriguez also manages to up the star power by adding Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, Mickey Rourke, Ruben Blades and Eva Mendes to the proceedings. Unfortunately, the extended cast and convoluted plot relegates Salma Hayek’s return to a series of flashbacks and in doing so, definitely does her character a disservice. Whilst Antonio Banderas is back on top form as ‘El Mariachi’, it’s actually Depp’s dark and dodgy CIA agent that really steals the show. Overall though, this neo-Western action flick is probably one for Rodriguez or cast member fans only. Columbia Pictures/Sony have presented a decent HD transfer here with some good extras, but once again, they’ve messed up the subtitles. The non-English speaking parts (if you can’t understand the multiple scenes of Spanish dialogue) aren’t catered for here, so you may need to activate the full English subs for the entire movie to know what’s going on. The studio have corrected this fault on some of their previous releases (2012, Bram Stoker’s Dracula), so hopefully they’ll sort this too (without re-releasing it).

Thank you for putting the Extras On🙂👍🏻

A fantastic way to end the Mexico Trilogy after the breakthrough El Mariachi and Desperado. Banderas, Depp, Hayek, Mendes, Dafoe and Rourke all give solid performances. The story is interesting and this instalment may even qualify as the best.