Robert Rodriguez's original trailer for Machete, kicking off 2007's double-feature Grindhouse, is perfection. It paints a picture of a world where Danny Trejo's Machete is a Shaft-level icon, a lover of women and killer of men who stars in an action movie with enough sex and violence to melt your face off. But in trying to create a real movie that incorporated all of the footage from that fake trailer, Rodriguez seems to have hit a snag. He had so many scenes to include and so many actors he wanted to add to the mix that the movie turned into an unwieldy, overcomplicated mess that's more parody than homage. The original trailer seems to portray a more serious film with a more stripped-down purpose, and while that fictional movie doesn't appear to have the involvement of Steven Seagal, Jessica Alba or Don Johnson, it may be a superior work to its current, real-life counterpart.

Tags: Danny Trejo, Grindhouse, Machete, review, Robert Rodriguez