Did you see the original Machete? It was another example of Robert Rodriguez’s attempts at reviving the moribund grindhouse genre and despite (or because of) its low production values, surprisingly accomplished cast and over-the-top violence and sexuality, it was legitimately an entertaining movie.
Since the original cost very little to make and handily recouped its budget Rodriguez has been hard on work on a sequel dubbed Machete Kills. Our list of expectations for this movie includes “violence,” “scantily clad nubile women” and “a willful ignorance of politically correct dialogue options,” but at no point did we expect the film to serve as the acting debut of a pop star who trades almost exclusively on her ability to shock residents of the Midwest.
And yet, Lady Gaga appears in Machete Kills.
“I just finished working with @LadyGaga on @MacheteKills, she kicked SO MUCH ASS! Holy Smokes. Blown away!” Robert Rodriguez posted to his Twitter account earlier today. Confirming the claim, Lady Gaga tweeted the following: “Yes its true, I will be making my debut as an actress ln the amazing MACHETE KILLS BY @RODRIGUEZ IM SO EXCITED!!! AH! Filming was insane.”
Don’t trust Twitter blurbs? How about a full-sized Machete Kills poster featuring the singer in character as “La Chameleon?” Bleeding Cool has such a thing. You can see the most pertinent bits in the image at the top of this post, but we reccomend viewing the original as the wolf corpse Gaga is wearing in the picture is pretty great (assuming you aren’t a member of PETA or a surprisingly internet-savvy wolf).
Of course, none of this answers the crucial question of what Gaga’s role in the film might be. We’re getting a definite femme fatale vibe from her image, but that seems a bit out of sorts with what little we know of Machete Kills. Unless Rodriguez is opting for an inexplicable prequel/historical angle with this thing, it should be set in the present and Gaga’s outfit looks utterly out of place for even the most eccentric hoodlum.
Then again, maybe that’s the point. Perhaps Rodriguez realized that Lady Gaga’s appearance would be meaningless if she wasn’t wearing something wacky, and despite the rest of the film being relatively grounded opted to toss her into a vintage bathing suit complemented nicely by the nearly-whole corpse of a dead animal. Whether she can act or not is irrelevant; as her career has demonstrated one does not need to be an objectively good musician to attract fans, as long as you can come up with new, bizarre outfits to wear on stage every night.
On the other hand, maybe acting is the one field in which Gaga can finally step out of Madonna’s shadow. It’s hard to avoid comparisons between the two when discussing pop music, but for all of Madonna’s success as a singer she’s not really much of a thespian. Actually, she’s pretty bad. Fingers crossed that Gaga can do better (or, failing that, at least not sink the entire production with a laughably terrible performance).
