Grindhouse: Planet Terror

Starring: Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, Bruce Willis, Naveen Andrews, Nicky Katt, Quentin Tarantino
Directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Horror
2007

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: When a deadly virus excapes and turns people into murderous creatures, a handful of survivors (Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey) must fight to stop the general (Bruce Willis) partially responsible for its outbreak.

Review:

Tim: If I thought the first half of the Grindhouse double feature was bad (and I did), I didn’t know that this film would manage to be even worse than that. I’m all for paying homage to films, but this was just silly. We’re supposed to get caught up in this zombie movie that is actually just completely out of control. Director Robert Rodriguez seems to feel licensed to do whatever he wanted to make this as absurd and ridiculous as possible. There was some semblance of a plot, but this is lost amid the explosions, gunfights, suggestive dialogue, and zombie terror.

I will give Rodriguez credit for bringing on board a fairly decent cast. I loved seeing Naveen Andrews, although I wish he had an even bigger role. Freddy Rodriguez was surprisingly good in his role. Rose McGowan wasn’t quite as bad as she was in Death Proof. I also loved seeing Jeff Fahey—where has this guy been for the last ten years? Bruce Willis has a fairly decent role, but not exactly great. Sadly, the cast rarely has the opportunity to do much of anything but seem unrealistic and unbelievable.

I didn’t like the part of the movie when a “lost” reel cuts out a huge chunk of the movie. We’re asked to follow this absurd plot, and then we miss several minutes of the movie, and have to imagine or guess at what happened thanks to some not-so-subtly placed dialogue. This just felt gimmicky to me. I suppose, however, that this gimmick made the movie shorter, so I am appreciative of that.

I guess in the end, Planet Terror feels more like a silly adolescent boy’s attempt at a movie than an actual motion picture. I didn’t get caught up in the hype or the gimmicks, and both of these movies just seem dumb and pointless to me—and this one is the worse of the two.



Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Grindhouse: Death Proof