C'era una volta in Messico

I think this will be remembered as Rodriguez's vanity project, a film so indulgent it makes a strong case for studio control. Its narrative is feeble, its caricatures squeezed into the plot, and even much of the action is repetitive. Rodriguez is an inventive filmmaker, but he's certainly no artist, as this, the third part of his personal Mariachi trilogy, proves.

Of the cast, Ruben Blades is good as an ex-FBI agent persuaded to avenge his partner, while Johnny Depp steals the film from just about everyone, including the director. The rest of this bloodbath is pretty much a bore. Banderas' character is reduced to an extremely silly comic book hero - more interested in his guitar than he is of avenging his woman (a redundant cameo from Salma Hayek).

Rodriguez intended this as his Leone trilogy, but as over the top as those Dollars films were, there was more gravitas in one frame than in the whole of this daft pastiche.

Overstuffed and very silly, this is a disappointing effort.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO (2003) *** Antonio Banderas, Johnny Depp, Salma Hayek, Mickey Rourke, Ruben Blades, Eva Mendes, Willem Dafoe, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Enrique Iglesias, Marco Leonardi, Gerardo Vigil, Pedro Armendariz Jr., Julio Oscar Mechoso, Tito Larriva. Wunderkind Robert Rodriguez' grand finale - Sergio Leone-style - of his South of the Border trilogy of El Mariachi, the lone assassin for hire cum renegade (Banderas once again) who is out for revenge (natch) for the murder of his beloved (the achingly gorgeous Hayek in flashbacks) while being ‘hired' by gonzo-crazed CIA man Depp (in Walken mode) involving a corrupt federale (the heavenly femme fatale Mendes), a retired FBI agent (Blades) and a nasty presidente-wanna-be madman (Dafoe in heavy bronzer) resulting in a digital bloodbath with flying corpses, gravity defying stunts (and women to boot!) and much tongue-thru-cheek take-no-prisoners guerilla filmmaking Rodriguez has made a trademark for (writing, ‘chopping' and directing) with more of the same to the nth degree. Bloody good carnage and suspension of disbelief should be checked at the door. And for the record: that is Rourke's own Chihuahua.

El Mariachi has long quit the gunslinger trade but is offered a chance to avenge the death of his wife and daughter by slightly unhinged CIA agent Sands. Sands is trying to control a coup by allowing it to happy but then having the victor killed as soon as he takes power. However the involvement of drug lord Barillo and various other groups soon complicate matters causing bullets to come from all sides.

After taking an unlikely trilogy to box office success, Rodriguez returns to the film series that basically brought him the success he has today – El Mariachi. While the first film in the series was a very cheap movie, the second and the third swelled with budget and star names. Here the action is constant and is very stylised. This is not to say that it is all edge of the seat stuff, but if spectacle and bangs is all you are after then this should do the job nicely. None of it moves slowly simply because it has more than enough going on to fill the time – but that's the problem to be honest.

The plot has so much going on but none of it actually fits together or makes a whole lot of sense. After a while any attempt to put things together in my head became a wasted effort – clearly the point here was that the style and gloss was meant to be everything. The other downside to this is that some characters are so poorly used that it's a wonder as to why they were even written in. Some cameos are fantastic and make the film. I refer to, of course, Depp, who, for the second time this summer, manages to make a film better by his sheer witty performance. He owes a lot to the writing of the character but he carries him off superbly and is darkly funny. However Rouke, Blades, Mendes, Dafoe all have little to do and, with some of them, are just clutter. Banderas does his usual stuff with style but his character doesn't have the depth that the flashbacks I think are meant to give him – again this is style over substance.

I still quite enjoyed the film but couldn't help but feel it was less the sum of it's parts. With a budget, big names and lots of action I was surprised that the cluttered, shambolic plot managed to take away from the `fun' as much as it did – but it did. Quite enjoyable but you need a LOT of style to win compensate for the total lack of substance.

I am a fan of Robert Rodriguez's previous offerings of El Mariachi and the wonderful Desperado. Here he once more returns to the same character as portrayed in the two earlier outings but this time seems to miss the mark by a country mile. Although the first two movies were simple 'revenge' films which served to give the shoot-outs their purpose; this movie tries to embellish this idea with a few sub-plots which frankly just don't work. I was bored throughout and even though he returns with his trademark comic-book violence, this time round it just seemed to be one big yawn-fest.

I had no interest in any of the characters, I am madly in love with Salma Hayek but frankly here I could care less about her character. Banderas does fill the screen when on but sadly, it just isn't enough to lift this movie above more than mere average.

Sorry Robert, if a bigger budget means we have to suffer this, then please go back to the low budget movies that made your name, in those you were brilliant; here, merely less than average.

I've seen some bad movies in my day, but this one ranks right up there with the worst of them. Several other posters noticed the same thing in the opening credits, the film was CHOPPED by Rodriguez. That credit is the understatement of the century. It takes a really bad movie for me to be unhappy about it...I hated this film. The story was hard to follow, the action scenes were so bad they were laughable, and the great cast was wasted on this wretched project. Johnny Depp is the sole bright spot in this movie, too bad the story didn't evolve around him. In the end, even he was relegated to a completely rediculous role. Who did Rodriguez think Depp was...Daredevil? Ugh. I wouldn't watch this again if you paid me $20.