'MaXXXine' review: A beautiful facade that’s empty behind the walls, all surface, meaningless symbols, and not an ounce of substance to be found.
Say hello to Maxine Minx , the heroine of Ti West’s “MaXXXine,” the third installment in his hastily dispatched “X” trilogy. Last we saw Maxine, she was beating a quick retreat away from a Texas porn star massacre, leaving a trail of bloody carnage in her wake.
Like the previous two films in the trilogy, “MaXXXine” offers writer-director-editor West an opportunity for genre play. If “X” was a grimy ‘70s slasher, and prequel “Pearl” was a Technicolor musical with ax murdering, “MaXXXine” wears the skin of a sexy, sleazy ‘80s erotic thriller. But that proves to be only aesthetic: there’s neither eroticism nor thrills — it’s just a cute costume.
West bonks us over the head with gestures to film history — a Buster Keaton impersonator threatens Maxine in an alley, she stubs out a cigarette on silent film star Theda Bara’s Walk of Fame star, Bacon done up in “Chinatown” drag chases her into the set of the house from “Psycho” — but none of these references add up to anything meaningful. They’re just increasingly annoying elbow jabs to the ribs.
Like these talky speeches, West packs “MaXXXine” with familiar quotes, images and truisms that gesture toward “Hollywood commentary,” but there’s no actual comment. He manages to say nothing at all, and is unwilling to indict his leading lady, thereby undercutting her power. Ruthlessly ambitious Maxine is far more interesting when we conceive of her as the villain in this story, not the heroine.
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