Robert Rodriguez and the cinematic time machine....

Watching Machete today I was amazed at Robert Rodriguez' sense of cinematic history.  The movie feels very much like it was just opened up at a theater from a old roll from about 30 years ago.  The movie is ridiculous and strange and very entertaining...every bit what one would expect from the trailer included with Planet Terror and Death Proof.  A word of warning though folks... this is just as much a Grindhouse flick as the previous films... Intense and over the top violence, scantily clad women, fast cars and chases... all the classics... yet this movie had me wondering... why wasn't the Expendables more like this?  I mean it was cool enough for me (the Expendables), but still I didn't figure on it beating out the fantastic Scott Pilgrim vs. The World?  If the all star action cast had a bit more direction and feeling behind it like this fun Grindhouse film, I'd have been less put off by the idea.  Now all that being said, Machete...  while being a lot more fun than it's most recent Action Film predecessor, suffers from standard action flaws... There's very little in the way of actual plot and the characters are Caricatures of people.  There is some nice development of character with a couple of the female leads that I enjoyed, but most of the males...including the title character never really have anything similar.  Yet I had a far more enjoyable time watching this movie than I did with the Expendables several weeks ago.  Setting this movie with Planet Terror for a double feature would be a highly entertaining experience, one that I'll likely look to try once it's out on DVD, or Streaming media.