Overrated and overhyped

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

A tourist's eye view of a Mexican city, but a beautiful view nonetheless. No squatter's settlements. The churches are rococo, ordinary buildings seem to glow in the golden hour, and inside it's all salmon pink and pale green.That's it. That's the good part.The performances aren't that bad either, as far as that goes, and the cast is professional. Some performers have substantial roles, like the agreeable Antonio Banderas. Others appear to have shown up for one day's work, like Salma Hayek.The plot and direction are a convoluted mess. We are treated to a shoot out or high speed pursuit every few minutes. The stunts are literally incredible. A shotgun blast throws the victim through an arc that, at its apex, is about ten feet from the ground. You'll find more depth in a comic book or a Betty Boop cartoon.

This is one of only two films I have walked out on in my life. The plot is boring then there is a scene where Johhny Depps character is firing off million bullets a minute and hitting no one then 5 minutes later with his eyes having been gouged out he turns and hits a following man right between the eyes! One reviewer even he enjoyed the film but had to watch it three times to understand the plot! Its rubbish.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico is director Robert Rodriguez's third, and final, film in the trilogy which began with El Mariachi (1992) and continued with Desperado (1995). This is a series of films which have progressively gotten more expensive and slick but also less good as they have went on. The extreme lo-fi nature of the first movie combined with Rodriguez raw talent led to a very good film, where the sheer restrictions in production values forced the film-maker to try harder to make things work. By the time we have reached Once Upon a Time in Mexico we now have elaborate action scenes sprinkled throughout and a very good cast at its disposal. I realise that the over the top action scenes that are found in this one and its predecessor Desperado are loved by many, yet I personally preferred the less cartoonish approach of the first film; sometimes bigger is not always better.The film as a whole actually works pretty well for the first half. There are a lot of characters in this one, in fact it could reasonably be called an ensemble film; the El Mariachi character is really not the main focus, I would say, if anything, it's Johnny Depp's rogue CIA agent. Depp is in actual fact the best thing about this one, although in fairness all the actors are really pretty good here. The trouble is that the movie becomes less enjoyable in the second half due to a quite messy plot. It felt like an alarming amount of screen time had characters delivering exposition-based dialogue in order to propel the plot forward. It got a bit tedious really and probably is a result of bad script writing as this is a movie that feels like it has a convoluted narrative, even though you sort of know that its plot is probably basic as hell. For what it's worth, the action set-pieces have been delivered with some technical ability, probably the best has to be the sequence where Banderas and Salma Hayek escape from a high storey of a hotel while chained together; the scene has no real relevance to anything and is certainly thrown in on the basis that it was a cool idea that Rodriguez wanted to do but, whatever the case, it is a well-executed bit of action nonsense for sure.My feeling by the end of this one was that it was only okay, yet was a film with a few good things about it.

Hit-man "El Mariachi" (Antonio Banderas) becomes involved in international espionage involving a psychotic CIA agent (Johnny Depp) and a corrupt Mexican general.Roger Ebert wrote, "Like Leone's movie, the Rodriguez epic is more interested in the moment, in great shots, in surprises and ironic reversals and closeups of sweaty faces, than in a coherent story". Boy, he could not be more right. If we are going to talk style versus substance, this film has style written all over it: some great visuals, intense scenes... but when it comes to actual substance, the story is not as tight as it could (or should) be.The "star" factor is here, with Johnny Depp and Willem Dafoe thrown into the mix, and Depp is certainly quite entertaining... but the dynamic also changes when your focus is less on the Mexican characters and more on this other guy, an outsider. The comedy was also increased greatly, too, and not always appropriately for the type of film it tries to be.Great fun for fans of "Desperado", but this is far from Rodriguez's best work.