After a strange gasa biological weapon developed by the militaryis deliberately released into the atmosphere, a group of survivors must do battle with hordes of bloodthirsty zombies, whilst also trying to stop the bad guys responsible for the epidemic.
Planet Terror is Robert Rodriguez's half of the faux exploitation double-bill originally released in the States (along with Quentin Tarantion's Death Proof and some 'fake' trailers) as Grindhouse. After the ambitious project tanked at the box office, the movies were split, padded to feature length, and released separately worldwide. Whilst neither film is a particularly good example of either directors' work, at least Planet Terror isn't the major disappointment that QT's dull yakathon proved to be.
Rodriguez begins his paean to the mindlessly violent drive-in flicks of yesteryear with a fun trailer for a trashy thriller entitled 'Machete', which, packed with OTT action, looks extremely impressive and certainly whets the appetite for the 'main feature'. Unfortunately, whilst Planet Terror doesn't disappoint with its constant inventiveness and awe-inspiring cinematic eye-candy, it is let down by some rather poor performances and a very weak and disjointed storyline which is merely there to connect the series of random (but admittedly) cool ideas and outrageous characters. Although a lot of low-budget exploitation from the 70s and 80s opted for gratuitous sex and violence instead of a tightly crafted plot, the good ones (and there are plenty out there if you look hard enough) delivered both. I can't help but feel that this fact was overlooked by Rodriguez in his rush to make his crazy ideas a reality.
Another gripe I have with Planet Terror is that, although it is now no longer part of the 'Grindhouse' experience, it still keeps its 'distressed' appearance. All of the scratchy film stock FX in the world cannot hide the fact that this is a contemporary movie, packed with state of the art digital trickery, and cutting edge directorial and editing techniques. The effect never really rings true and I wish it had been ditched.
What Rodriguez does do right, however, is pack his film with mighty fine women and loads of quality gore. It's hard to completely dismiss a film which features a) RoseMcGowan as a very sexy stripper, b) Marley Shelton as a very sexy nurse, c) Stacy Ferguson as a very sexy person who is only there to become a very sexy victim, and d) outstanding work by make-up wizards Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero, who whip up some truly incredible splatter, including several juicy exploding heads and a great scene in which Tom Savini is ripped apart (the prosthetic work is helped somewhat by CGI, but the results are very impressive).
Unfortunately, silly old Robert lets pal Quentin get his big chin in front of the camera (always a mistake), and gives way to nepotism, casting his talentless nieces as a pair of annoying babysitters. He also throws in a couple of characters that stand out as being just plain weird: Naveen Andrews plays a character who inexplicably collects testicles(!); and Jeff Fahey is J.T. Hague, a man who spends the entire movie trying to perfect a barbecue sauce (!!). However, he does redeem himself slightly by including an excellent scene in which a mother gives her young son a gun, in order to protect himself, only to have the dumb kid immediately shoot himself in the head.
Planet Terror gets a reasonable 6.5 out of 10 from me, although I'm not convinced by it enough to be willing to round my rating up to 7 for IMDb. So it gets a 6.
Planet Terror is Robert Rodriguez's half of the faux exploitation double-bill originally released in the States (along with Quentin Tarantion's Death Proof and some 'fake' trailers) as Grindhouse. After the ambitious project tanked at the box office, the movies were split, padded to feature length, and released separately worldwide. Whilst neither film is a particularly good example of either directors' work, at least Planet Terror isn't the major disappointment that QT's dull yakathon proved to be.
Rodriguez begins his paean to the mindlessly violent drive-in flicks of yesteryear with a fun trailer for a trashy thriller entitled 'Machete', which, packed with OTT action, looks extremely impressive and certainly whets the appetite for the 'main feature'. Unfortunately, whilst Planet Terror doesn't disappoint with its constant inventiveness and awe-inspiring cinematic eye-candy, it is let down by some rather poor performances and a very weak and disjointed storyline which is merely there to connect the series of random (but admittedly) cool ideas and outrageous characters. Although a lot of low-budget exploitation from the 70s and 80s opted for gratuitous sex and violence instead of a tightly crafted plot, the good ones (and there are plenty out there if you look hard enough) delivered both. I can't help but feel that this fact was overlooked by Rodriguez in his rush to make his crazy ideas a reality.
Another gripe I have with Planet Terror is that, although it is now no longer part of the 'Grindhouse' experience, it still keeps its 'distressed' appearance. All of the scratchy film stock FX in the world cannot hide the fact that this is a contemporary movie, packed with state of the art digital trickery, and cutting edge directorial and editing techniques. The effect never really rings true and I wish it had been ditched.
What Rodriguez does do right, however, is pack his film with mighty fine women and loads of quality gore. It's hard to completely dismiss a film which features a) RoseMcGowan as a very sexy stripper, b) Marley Shelton as a very sexy nurse, c) Stacy Ferguson as a very sexy person who is only there to become a very sexy victim, and d) outstanding work by make-up wizards Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero, who whip up some truly incredible splatter, including several juicy exploding heads and a great scene in which Tom Savini is ripped apart (the prosthetic work is helped somewhat by CGI, but the results are very impressive).
Unfortunately, silly old Robert lets pal Quentin get his big chin in front of the camera (always a mistake), and gives way to nepotism, casting his talentless nieces as a pair of annoying babysitters. He also throws in a couple of characters that stand out as being just plain weird: Naveen Andrews plays a character who inexplicably collects testicles(!); and Jeff Fahey is J.T. Hague, a man who spends the entire movie trying to perfect a barbecue sauce (!!). However, he does redeem himself slightly by including an excellent scene in which a mother gives her young son a gun, in order to protect himself, only to have the dumb kid immediately shoot himself in the head.
Planet Terror gets a reasonable 6.5 out of 10 from me, although I'm not convinced by it enough to be willing to round my rating up to 7 for IMDb. So it gets a 6.