Blu-ray

Robert Rodriguez's spoof trailer from 2007's Grindhouse seems to be the gift that just keeps on giving for fans of exploitation cinema. But while the first Machete served its main course of blood and babes with a side dish of commentary about immigration, this even more violent sequel has no such lofty pretensions.

This time around Machete (Danny Trejo) has been charged by the US President (Charlie Sheen) to assassinate Marcos Mendez (Demián Bichir), a schizophrenic revolutionary planning to fire a nuclear missile at Washington. Unfortunately, Mendez has had his trigger device wired to his heart, forcing Machete to keep him alive and race back to America in order to have it deactivated. And just to make things even harder, Mendez has put a bounty on his own head – which has attracted the interest of the man-hating Madame Desdemona (Sofía Vergara, with a Gatling gun bra) and the notorious hitman El Camaleón (Lady Gaga, Cuba Gooding Jr. and others).

Yes, Machete Kills is clearly complete trash. But as parodies of exploitation films go, Rodriguez's sequel is weirder, funnier, bloodier and ultimately more authentic than the tedious Sharknado and its ilk. And even if the joke has worn pretty thin by now, the Machete Kills Again… In Space trailer that opens this film looks goofy enough to have us coming back for more one last time.

Picture: Mercifully, outside of the opening trailer and main credits, Machete Kills eschews the whole 'faux-grindhouse' aesthetic and delivers the kind of razor-sharp, richly-saturated AVC 1.85:1 1080p transfer that really gets the best out of your setup.

Shot using Arri Alexa Plus digital cameras, the film's imagery is awash with vivid colours and exhibits a high fidelity throughout when it comes to rendering intricate detailing and deep, dark blacks. While banding raises its head on a few occasions in large blocks of solid colour, other technical issues such as excessive edge sharpening and compression artefacting are nowhere to be seen. In fact, Lionsgate's first-rate Blu-ray encode ensures that Machete Kills is one of the most spectacular-looking exploitation flicks you'll ever see.
Picture rating: 4.5/5

Audio: The disc's DTS-HD Master Audio  5.1 soundtrack proves just as satisfying as its hi-def visuals, creating a seamlessly integrated aural environment packed full of positional effects and room-filling ambience. All of this is augmented by some pleasingly punchy low-end, which really helps sell the film's rather bombastic approach to on-screen violence.
Audio rating: 4.5/5

Extras: Remember when Robert Rodriguez used to fill his discs with all sorts of great extras, from commentaries to cookery classes? Well, there's none of that here. Nor do we get either of the extras from Universal's US Blu-ray release (a Making of… featurette and a collection of extended scenes). Instead, Lionsgate's UK disc serves up two extremely short promo videos (If Carlos Estevez Was President and Six Degrees of Robert Rodriguez) alongside 40 minutes of cast and crew interviews.
Extras rating: 1.5/5

We say: While the film itself will no doubt prove divisive, nobody can argue the merits of this striking hi-def platter

Machete Kills, Lionsgate, Region B BD, £25 Approx
HCC VERDICT: 3/5