Hmmm – Planet Terror: a fun, fast and furious homage to the old b-movie schlock movies.
One problem here: doesn’t Robert Rodriguez make B-movies anyway (El Mariachi, Sin City, From Dusk Till Dawn)? So Planet Terror is a homage to... Robert Rodriguez movies? I’m confused, but let’s face it – it doesn’t take much.
There’s nothing wrong with Planet Terror as such, discounting of course Quentin Tarantino’s role as Rapist #1 (subtle it ain’t). The thing that intrigued me most about it was Rebel Rodriguez’s (Robert Rodriguez’s son) resemblance to Danny Lloyd in The Shining – it really is quite startling. Robert Rodriguez makes a throwaway comment about it here, but I’m sure there’s more to this than meets the eye. The only evidence that the reference to The Shining was deliberate is that Rebel’s character in the film is called Tony, which was the name of Danny Torrance’s alter ego. Also, given the fact that Planet Terror is a homage to the exploitation movie (many of these released at around the same time as The Shining) it might have been possible for Danny Lloyd to bag a part in one of these flicks (the fact that he didn’t is neither here nor there). If you’re in the habit of ascribing a huge degree of intelligence to a movie when in reality there’s probably none, you might come to the conclusion that Rodriguez enjoys fucking with his audience’s collective head – until the point that Tony shoots himself with the gun that his mother has entrusted to him, leaving that particular narrative thread to go nowhere. Even weirder is that the film ends with a shot of Tony, frolicking on a beach with various survivors in some kind of weird idealised daydream. I no understand.
5 comments:
Ooh, a spoiler warning mightn't go amiss, sir! Luckily, I've seen it already and thoroughly enjoyed it. All I can remember is a load of blood flying around, that remarkable leg/machine gun interface and, uh, more blood. Splendid!
Doh! Duly amended - I;m usually pretty good with the old spoiler alerts but my brain was addled after watching this, so that's my rather (pathetic) excuse. It's a very enjoyable piece of nonsense, mind you - I just can't decide if it's trying to be more intelligent than it actually is!
According to Wikipedia (yeah, yeah, I KNOW), There's a version of the film in which the nipper lives right through the film, but RR made that especially for his son. Or something. Oh, I don't know, I only saw the film for the first time last week, and whilst I enjoyed it a fair amount, I felt led to believe I'd enjoy it a lot more, if you know what I mean.
J
Strangely enough, I do know what you mean, John - I loved the characterisation more than anything else I think, but a lot of it did begin to niggle after a while. For instance, the "missing reel": a bit of self-referential fun, or an excuse not to write a load of clunky exposition? I just can't decide...
There was a line which instantly reminded me of The Shining. The mom picks up her son and says, "Look what you did to our son!", but in The Shining she says "You did this to him! You did this!"
Post a Comment