Review of Grindhouse (2007) by Michaele. — 07 Apr 2007

Exploitation movies are often stupid and bad, and I can forgive that in a recreation of this sort - but exploitation movies are usually boring too, and that I can't forgive. Planet Terror begins with Rose McGowan go-go dancing.

It's sexy. I turned to my buddy and said: "Bet it's all downhill from here." It was. Planet Terror is spectacularly dull, filled with fake frenetic action worthy of one of the Star Wars prequels.

There's nothing much to latch onto. It's about as exciting as watching really violent paint dry. Death Proof is a little bit better, but not great. While the already infamous boggy dialogue scenes definitely hurt the movie (one such scene would have been nice, but not nothing but)), the real problem is the pointlessness of those scenes: nothing revealed about the characters ends up mattering, (except "She's a stuntwoman," I guess).

There's no real plot either, just talk talk talk, then action - like a Godzilla movie. That said, the car chase is awesome. But it belongs in a better movie. It would have been nice to have a real ending, too, but since there was no plot how could there be an ending? The trailers are the best part.

I would much rather have seen "Machete" than Planet Terror. It's kind of sad to think that Rob Zombie and Eli Roth, both of whom make Rodriguez look like Brian De Palma and Tarantino like Hitchcock, provide some of the best material here.

They, I think, understood that this was supposed to be a joke. I saw The Queen in the very same theatre. It was far more exciting.