If the real Grindhouse movies had kept what they promised on movie posters and in previews they would all have been as fantastically entertaining as "Planet Terror". Of course, Rodriguez movie had a much higher budget to work with than the B- and C-flicks from the 70's and you can see it. The make-up is hilariously over the top, but it still looks great, zombies are getting massacred left and right, things explode every two seconds - it's obvious that this is a big budget movie made to look like trash. Even the story doesn't seem as trashy as we're supposed to think it is, because you can see how much thought actually went into it. Supposedly it's also meant to be a tribute to John Carpenter's movies, which I can't understand at all. Carpenter's work was never as trashy as "Planet Terror" is (well, excluding maybe "Escape From L.A.") and it has a completely different feel to it.
Still, all of this doesn't take away from the fun of "Planet Terror". The "Grindhouse"-feeling is just there to help us forget that we're not watching this to stimulate our intellect, but to have a jolly good time. And a jolly good time we have.
The movie is filled with great one-liners and cool characters in true Tarantino/Rodriguez fashion. If there is one flaw, it's that there are too many characters and that, even though that is intentional, they're all just a bit too one-dimensional, leaving us with almost nothing to identify with. That keeps the whole movie strangely shallow. Fun but shallow.
At the end of the day "Planet Terror" is the more entertaining out of the two "Grindhouse" films and it's also Robert Rodriguez' best movie so far. I can see why the two movies together flopped, though. Although I enjoyed them both individually I don't think I would have liked to see "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof" in one sitting.
Still, all of this doesn't take away from the fun of "Planet Terror". The "Grindhouse"-feeling is just there to help us forget that we're not watching this to stimulate our intellect, but to have a jolly good time. And a jolly good time we have.
The movie is filled with great one-liners and cool characters in true Tarantino/Rodriguez fashion. If there is one flaw, it's that there are too many characters and that, even though that is intentional, they're all just a bit too one-dimensional, leaving us with almost nothing to identify with. That keeps the whole movie strangely shallow. Fun but shallow.
At the end of the day "Planet Terror" is the more entertaining out of the two "Grindhouse" films and it's also Robert Rodriguez' best movie so far. I can see why the two movies together flopped, though. Although I enjoyed them both individually I don't think I would have liked to see "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof" in one sitting.