Pretty Visuals, Ugly Story

Rating: 3/10 (5 August 2006)

I swear the Satan himself must have made this movie. It is so vile, so filled with meanness and hate, you can just feel evil oozing out of the TV set as you watch the DVD. I felt like taking a shower after watching this filth.
The only reason I stayed with it were the fantastic visuals. A fan of film noir, I just loved the photography in here, although a bunch of it was computer-generated, or had that look. Nonetheless, it was fascinating to view.
The story, however, is so ugly and so anti-God and particularly anti-Catholic (and I'm not Catholic) that it's disgusting. Imagine a movie this prejudiced against Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. But - give scumbag filmmakers a cross to make fun of (or a bunch of the nastiest women alive all wearing big crosses around their necks) and/or a story where the clergy are the worst villains in the movie, as we have here - and, oh boy, they're more than happy to make a movie with that as a main part of the story.
I have no problem with violence on film, but this is so overdone it is absurd. If you've followed the Robert Rodriquez "El Mariachi" films, you know that he has become more and more violent with each movie. This Rodriguez dude (the director of this film) cannot have enough blood, guts, explosions and general mayhem in his movies.
Everything about this film is nasty....way too nasty, which is why it wasn't a success at the box office. It was violent film-making extremism at is worst. What a shame to waste those fabulous visuals with trash like this.