Time was, a film making only $25 million would not warrant a sequel. But in a year when even something like "Jeepers Creepers" gets a follow-up , we have "Once Upon a Time in Mexico," the sequel to 1995's "Desperado" (itself a sequel to the ultra-low-budget "El Mariachi," from 1992). It is all the handiwork of Robert Rodriguez, a film industry maverick and jack-of-all-trades. He handled the writing, directing, photographing, editing, producing and scoring of this film, and he has multi-tasked on his other work, too, including the recent trilogy of "Spy Kids" flicks. There is always a singularity of vision about his movies, an energy that carries from screenplay to scene composition to editing. You can tell it's the work of the same talented man, and there's a certain excitement to seeing a movie made that way. "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" has more of the same exuberant violence and bloodshed that marked "El Mariachi" and "Desperado," where the force of being shot often propels victims backward and airborne several yards, where the bloodless gunshot wounds of old-time Westerns are a thing of the past, and where even the good guys can get shot, too (though they often live to tell about it). Such extremities are an acquired taste, certainly, though the cool stylization of the wanton bloodshed is undeniably impressive, whether you happen to like looking at it or not.
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