DVD Review: Planet Terror - Page 2

In order to better pay tribute to the grindhouse features that Rodriguez is honoring, the film contains "missing reels" (the film skips a scene or two here and there) and innumerable "scratches." The "missing" scenes and scratches, the latter of which seem wholly computer generated and like something anyone can do using a PC these days, are far more annoying to the viewer than a tribute to bad projection and bad projectors.

Even so, the film provides an amusing hour and forty-five minute diversion from the everyday insanity of the real world. The stunts, dialogue, explanations, and explosions are both fun and funny if you have ever liked B-movies. The second disc of the two-disc set features a number of behind-the-scenes looks at all of the elements that went into creating the mayhem in the film.

Where the film really falls down is that, as fun as it is, and as good an homage as it may be, it has the feeling of all being very recycled. Save the notion of the leg-gun, nothing in the movie feels new or different — there's just more of it and it's made with more money (without more money one cannot use a computer to digitally remove McGowan's leg and put a gun in its place). That may not make Planet Terror any less fun, but it does make it somewhat less interesting.

These faults are both the greatest strength and weakness of Planet Terror. It is a movie that, as fun as it is, through the somewhat recycled nature of the material, "scratches," and "missing" reels shows exactly why the movies and theaters being paid tribute to no longer exist.

Article Author: Josh Lasser

Josh Lasser, formerly known as "TV and Film Guy," and complete with a Masters Degree in Critical Studies in said areas, gives his opinions on TV, Film, and Entertainment in general. All of which he does in a shameless attempt to try to get paid to do the exact same thing. …

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