Unless you're the Coen brothers, making it can be difficult. When people invest money in you, they want you to please as many people as possible in order to bolster their investment at the cost of your own artistic integrity. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino are intriguing cases to me: have they sold their soul or are they chronically uninspired paragons of integrity? I've magically steered clear of their double-header project GRINDHOUSE for the last seven years because the concept is so goddamn cool and the reviews so torn, the room for deception is about the size of Missouri. I've put my big boy pants for you though, my dear readers, and sat through the damn thing. So this week I'll review them both, in good double-header fashion. Let me tell you though, I'm happy at least half of it lived up to my expectations. You'll have to click through to find out which one, though.
So let's begin with PLANET TERROR, usually shown first during GRINDHOUSE screenings. Military scientist Abby (the multi-talented, underrated Naveen Andrews) is about to land a deal for his potent bio-chemical weapon with Lieutenant Muldoon (Bruce Willis) when it goes wrong and Abby prefers to shoot the cannisters and make the weapon airborne into the surrounding area rather than get robbed blind by the soldiers. The gas is a weapon made to annihilate an entire population, transforming them into flesh-eating, zombie like creatures. A group of survivors lead by a disgruntled go-go dancer (Rose McGowan), a reformed criminal (Freddy Rodriguez) and a doctor with a terrible domestic life (Marley Shelton) have to lead humanity's last survival efforts.
Going for the grindhouse, drive-in vibe can be tricky. It's way easier to parody the genre and going overboard at every chance you get. I was worried at the beginning of PLANET TERROR because the first seven minutes are trailers and an extensive go-go dancing number. There is literally no narrative content that ties-in to PLANET TERROR in itself. I was reassured once the movie started, though. Robert Rodriguez penned the script himself and it shows. PLANET TERROR is a serious movie with a sense of humour about itself. It has genuine, well crafted characters, sound dialogues and very little of the ''drive-in moments'' don't relate to the storyline. It's a zombie story first of all and THEN it's a grindhouse film. If Robert Rodriguez's priorities would've been the opposite, we would've crossed into masturbatory nostalgia territory. Fortunately, it's not the case here.
Rose McGowan is underrated. Always been. She was even underrated as a girlfriend of Marilyn Manson.
So yeah, PLANET TERROR is funny. It's funny in a very particular way, because a lot of the jokes refer to the 70s, as well as drive-in cinema culture. For example, it's packed with sexist jokes. Sexism is funny in PLANET TERROR because it laughs at the person telling the joke. The go-go bar owner is a good example. Whatever comes out of his mouth is painfully sexist, but the character is useless. He cannot fight his way out of a paper back and it basically piggybacking Cherry Darling and Wray's (Freddy Rodriguez) survival efforts. PLANET TERROR has its own way of being smart and playful. It masters purpose and structure admirably well.
I had a good time with PLANET TERROR. It's witty and fun and most important, it's not blinded by its own nostalgia. It was important for me that it wouldn't just be a series of purposeless reminders of how cool the 70s drive-in cinema used to be. I'm sure that if Robert Rodriguez would rework his screenplay and shoot PLANET TERROR as a serious, contemporary zombie movie, it would narratively hold its own. It wouldn't be the most original thing, but it would still make sense and the characters would still lead the story where it's supposed to go. It's how nostalgia cinema is supposed to be made, I think. It's supposed to be a good movie, first and foremost. It's like building a house. once you have a sturdy underlying structure, you can paint it whatever colour you feel like.
