I don’t even know where to begin. All I can tell you is that from the moment Machete started until the credits rolled (complete with promised sequels!), I had a grin on my face the size of Texas. At one point, I believe I actually whooped at the screen. There is just not enough hyperbole in the world to express how much I loved this movie, and I know I’m going overboard with the praise already, like by a lot, but I can’t stop myself. It is really comparable in plot and character development to what 2012 did with set design and special effects. In fact, if 2012 had not existed, I would call this the most over-the-top movie I’d ever seen, and I still think the fact that it goes in other directions will make anyone who loved that movie love this one without having to feel like it’s ripping anything off.

Of course, Machete is ripping something off, and that something is an entire decade of drive-in cinema, picking and choosing plot points, recurring themes, and larger than life characters at will to create the ultimate expression of 1970s badassery. Oh, and it’s ripping off limbs and heads by the cart-load, but that probably goes without saying. I don’t think there’s a single character that Danny Trejo (in the eponymous role) doesn’t fight or fuck his way through on his rampage through a slightly surreal version of Austin to take out Steven Seagal’s conniving drug lord; it’s not clear that Machete knows any other way to interact with the populace at large. Robert Rodriguez has surpassed Planet Terror in every way, and all with a movie he fleshed out from a fake trailer, apparently because modern politics reminded him of the idea? I am grateful to you, crazy Arizonan lawmakers!

I kind of wish I was watching it again, right now.