Review of Planet Terror (2007) by Cale B — 19 Feb 2014

"Planet Terror," the first part of the Robert Rodriguez-Quentin Tarantino "Grindhouse" double feature, stars the always-sexy Rose McGowan as Cherry Darling, a go-go dancer who is looking to find a use for her many "useless talents." She wants to be a stand-up comedian; however, the whole "stand-up" aspect of her routine gets quickly interrupted when zombies attack the city and she loses one of her legs. Yeah, it seems there's this military base where Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis) is making a transaction with a chemical engineer named Abby (Naveen Andrews) for some kind of chemical; when Muldoon wants to take it all, Abby releases it into the air, and it turns anyone who comes in contact with the stuff into zombies.

There are a lot of colorful characters in this movie. There's Cherry's ex-boyfriend "El Wray" (Freddy Rodriguez), the no-nonsense sheriff (Michael Biehn) who provides some comic relief, Deputy Tolo (Tom Savini) who does nothing but accidentally shoot civilians, the mean-ass Dr. William Block (Josh Brolin) and his unfaithful bisexual wife Dakota (Marley Shelton), who's looking to reunite with her girlfriend Tammy (Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson), plus many more. I enjoy most of them, although I think my favorite is the BBQ restaurant owner JT (Jeff Fahey). He says "best in Texas" better than anyone I can think of.

I have to admit, I'm having a hard time even reviewing this movie, because this isn't one that I can judge like a normal movie. It's not a normal movie; it's made to be ridiculously cheesy and over-the-top, and "Planet Terror" does that very well. But I will say there are times when it goes too far in its shock value. There are moments that just have me cringing in their imagery; I don't think it's really distracting, but a movie like this should be fun to watch, and in a few of these moments, it's not too fun for me. I also don't really like watching the scenes with Josh Brolin's character Dr. Block too much. Don't get me wrong; Brolin does really well in this role, but it's just very unpleasant to watch because it doesn't really match the tone of the movie. It's more like something you'd see in a psychological thriller or something. There's also the scene where the Crazy Babysitter Twins (Electra and Elise Avellan) smash up Dakota's car...with her son Tony inside. Where did that come from? Also, I question the motive behind the scientist Abby. Why would he just callously release the gas into the air like that? Doesn't he know it will spread all over the place? He's basically responsible for bringing about an apocalypse or whatever.

But it's an awesome time overall, and the actors are more than appropriate for the roles. Rose McGowan has to be in more Rodriguez films, and really more films in general; she practically oozes with sex appeal in this role, yet she never comes across as faking it, even in lousy films like "Devil in the Flesh" and "Jawbreaker." Bruce Willis gets some bad-ass scenes (apparently using an old trick where he films all his scenes from the front at one time with a body double doing scenes from the back, while never in the same frame as the other actors), and that's Michael Parks as Earl McGraw again from "From Dusk Till Dawn.".

Overall, the movie is simply kick-ass from beginning to end, and although I have some minor issues with it, I always have a fun time with it. I'm sad I couldn't see it in theaters, but the DVD I have features an "audience track," where you hear the sounds an actual audience made as they watched it; that's pretty cool. This film doesn't hold anything back; it goes straight to the heart of its grindhouse roots, with gruesome zombies, wild gunfights and a prosthetic leg rifle (I have no idea how Cherry fires that thing without pulling a trigger, but whatever). It's just a hell of a time.