Depp lacks his usual depth in disappointing 'Mexico'

Coming off the big box-office and critical success of his recent "Pirates of the Caribbean," Johnny Depp is one red hot star, and this heat has been lighting up his follow-up vehicle, "Once Upon a Time in Mexico," with high expectations and even Oscar buzz.

MOVIE REVIEW

ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO

DIRECTOR: Robert Rodriguez

CAST: Antonio Banderas, Johnny Depp, Salma Hayek

RUNNING TIME: 101 minutes

RATING: R for strong violence, and for language

WHERE: Bella Bottega 11, Cinema 17, Cinerama, Crossroads 8 Cinema, East Valley 13, Everett 9, Factoria, Galaxy Tacoma 6, Galleria 11, Gateway 8, Grand Cinemas, Issaquah 9, Kirkland Parkplace, Lewis & Clark, Longston Place 14, Marysville Cinema 14, Metro, Monroe 12, Mountlake 9, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Valley Drive-In, Woodinville 12

GRADE: D

But, sad to report, it's a rotten movie, and he's not at all good in it. In fact, for my money, it's the only one of his highly original and mostly under-appreciated performances that doesn't work -- that is NOT the best thing in its movie.

He's also, this time, not the film's hero. That honor falls to Antonio Banderas, who reprises his role in 1995's "Desperado," Robert Rodriguez's sequel to his 1992 low-budget wonder, "El Mariachi," about a violence-prone singing guitarist south of the border.

In this new episode, El Mariachi has married his "Desperado" squeeze (Salma Hayek), but she and their daughter have been brutally murdered by a baddie (all of which is presented in flashback) and so he is, naturally enough, out for revenge.

On this premise, writer-director Rodriquez constructs a bewilderingly complex story line filled with confusing subplots, stereotypical characters and super-human heroics, and so grindingly stupid and violent it raises the narrative interest of a cock fight.

The movie occasionally comes alive in bursts of Banderas' personal charisma, and in one or two imaginative stunt sequences. Some of the supporting performances -- Cheech Marin, Willem Dafoe, Mickey Rourke -- are also OK (though pop star Enrique Iglesias, making his movie debut, fizzles).

But the film's deliberately overblown cartoonishness and its gleefully pandering adolescent cruelty never blend into the enjoyable style of, say, a good spaghetti western (Rodriguez's acknowledged model), or even a bad Quentin Tarantino movie.

Depp plays -- mostly for laughs -- a corrupt and possibly certifiably insane CIA agent whose malevolent eccentricity is designed to provide the kind of stylish, engaging counterpoint to the hero that a James Mason or Burt Lancaster could give a change-of-pace villain role.

But the magic in Depp's persona -- evident in roles as different as "Ed Wood," "Donny Brasco" and "Benny & Joon" -- is a certain perversity seasoned by what we gradually come to recognize is a wonderful gentleness and wide-eyed innocence.

He simply doesn't have the knack for stylish villainy, he always appears to be consciously "acting" (in fact, aping his pal Marlon Brando's performance in "The Missouri Breaks") and most of the scenes in which he's trying to be ghoulishly appealing fall amazingly flat.