Planet Terror

While the dialogue was Tarantino’s Achilles heel, in Rodriguez’s case, it is the story. Despite these failings, both of the Grindhouse movies provide some delicious entertainment, and Planet Terror is an absolute king of the trash genre. On the “Troma scare”, I’d give it five out of five; on a normal scale, it gets three stars. (24/08/2007)

Filmed with love, humor, irony, detachment, and above all, joy. With every other shot, I had the image of an enthusiastic Robert Rodriguez bouncing around behind the camera and looking forward to the next take. And yet it occurred to me too often that the days when Robert was able to restrain his ideas and give them a form that didn't elicit protests of overcomplication and lack of taste were long gone. Yes, you can enjoy Planet Terror without necessarily liking it. It flies by, Bruce Willis occasionally takes a breather, Naveen Andrews delivers a great performance, and Freddy Rodriguez shoots so much it will make your head spin. Add to that perfect scenes like "the most badass character in the whole movie riding a children's motorcycle," and you'll find that the plot just doesn't stop. But it's a splatter film. And with that comes blood, slime, corpses, blisters, more slime, repulsiveness, twistedness, and an extra dose of slime on top of that. And that manages to bring down the entertaining ride to the level of a slightly below-average (albeit perfectly fast-paced) one-time viewing. (11/02/2008)

Robert Rodriguez is back just how I like him best. And about time, after the childish Spy Kids and the heavily narrative Sin City. Planet Terror has balls. Bloated zombies, guys with snappy lines and action that I have thirsted for ever since I saw Desperado for the first time. The cast is also excellent. A bad-guy Bruce Willis, the ravishing Rose McGowan and tough guy Freddy Rodriguez who came across in an even better light than he did in Harsh Times and I predict a promising future for him. Thorough-bred entertainment which will please Grindhouse fans much more than Tarantino’s piece. (05/10/2007)

This is still a blast. All those ideas in one place, great actors, and incredible action with so much blood and gore that it just has to entertain you because Rodriguez still knows how to hit a balance where it's not truly repulsive. That's good because then you simply have to enjoy this wonderfully B-grade film. Of course, if you like B-movies. (16/04/2015)

An honourable ruler of trash cinema with a lot of ideas, beautiful girls and a likeable cast, but it’s such bullshit that there’s no way we can fear for the characters and no mentally sane viewer will find anything to relate to in that crazy, impersonal world. Some of the characters are great (in particular the brother duo of the Sheriff and the butcher) and as a homage to trash cinema, the premise was fully exploited, but at the same time, it’s mostly lacking the true cinephile satisfaction and the elegance that was present in its sibling film Death Proof. Rather than to the classics, Rodriguez refers to Tarantino or even himself, creating a thematic world that is entertaining, but hardly acceptable. 70% (04/04/2019)