The Mexico Trilogy 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.0

The Mexico Trilogy 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 19, 2024

There's microbudgeting when it comes to making films and then there's Robert Rodriguez microbudgeting when it comes to making films. Almost unbelievably, at least contextually within the confines of macrobudgeted features whose bottom line can evidently quite frequently and easily get into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and frankly maybe even without any context whatsoever considering how amazing it is, Rodriguez pretty much literally burst upon the filmmaking scene in 1992 with the first film in this nicely appointed new set from Arrow, an outing which set Rodriguez back the princely sum of $7,000.00. That's not a misprint — there's no missing zero (or several) before the decimal point. El Mariachi created such a stir, and did reasonable enough box office, that Rodriguez probably unsurprisingly soon found himself courted by actual studios with significantly larger budgets, and among the many interesting films Rodriguez when on to multi-hyphenate (if that can be a verb) were the two sequels to El Mariachi. Rodriguez's kind of amazingly fast climb up fame and fortune's ladder is all the more remarkable when one considers what might be termed his "regional" proclivities, not to mention how he managed to initially fund that first step up a rung (enterprising Googlers are encouraged to do a little investigation). There's an almost feral and unkempt quality to the admittedly lo-fi and perhaps just slightly not ready for prime time ambience of El Mariachi, but there is also such an amazingly assured presence in the director's chair that Rodriguez's pretty seamless facility with larger funding amounts and bigger name marquee stars doesn't come as much of a surprise. As tends to be the case with Arrow's box sets, this is another pretty lavishly appointed release that is somewhat unusual in that it offers El Mariachi and Once Upon a Time in Mexico on 1080 discs, with Desperado presented on both 2160 (4K UHD) and 1080 discs (also a bit unusually, Arrow is releasing a standalone Desperado 4K SteelBook).

For reviews of the films in this set, please click on the following links:

El Mariachi Blu-ray review

Desperado 4K Blu-ray review

Once Upon a Time in Mexico Blu-ray review

The Mexico Trilogy 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Video quality is assessed in the above linked reviews.

The Mexico Trilogy 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audio quality is assessed in the above linked reviews.

The Mexico Trilogy 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

On disc supplements are detailed in the above linked reviews. This limited edition has Arrow's typical assortment of non-disc swag, including an illustrated collector's booklet featuring some great essays. All three keepcases feature reversible sleeves and enclose smaller folded mini posters. The slipbox (which is itself enclosed in an O ring) also has a larger folded poster in addition to the booklet.

The Mexico Trilogy 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Robert Rodriguez continues to be a rather distinctive filmmaker in a number of ways, and this trilogy is an interesting document of sorts detailing his rapid rise from indie wunderkind to big budget A-lister. The three films have varying levels of impact, but as usual Arrow provides generally solid technical merits and some really enjoyable supplements, all in a very handsomely packaged release. Recommended.