Tarantino bores with more banter boll ox, but at least Rodriguez knows what this whole Gringhouse thing is supposed to be - funny, disgusting, and way way over the top!

Rating: 7/10 (16 June 2007)

Call the Cool Police but am I the only one who thinks Tarantino is a one trick pony? He established his trademark snappy dialog and pop culture referentialisms with his first two films and has been trading on that success ever since! Like a Bon Jovi concert, each and every effort tries and fails to recapture the spirit of the original, only to fall back on the tried and tested to save its ass. Everyone has been wetting their pants about the whole Grindhouse thing ever since the banana-chinned one first starting blabbing about it, but I'm not too sure why - surely for two experienced filmmakers it should be no trouble at all to copy a sub-genre that at best is cult viewing and at worst a load of old balls, poorly scripted, poorly acted, poorly produced - so why should such filmmakers be given huge credit for recreating such shoddy films on a much larger budget?
Having said that, Robert Rodriguez's 'Planet Terror' is an excellent example of everything these types of films should be - humor, fighting, sex, loose storyline only held together by the sheer unbelievability and gross out quality of the action sequences, and the so-bad-it's-good effects that gave all such low budget gore-fest such a cult status. Basically every aspect needs to be way over the top and Planet Terror delivers in buckets, from the deliberately hammy performances from actors we know can really act, to the excellent 80's John Carpenter style soundtrack, and an excess of blood and exploding body parts I haven't seen since Peter Jackson hung up his butchers chopper. Great fun.
SPOILER ALERT!!!
I for one much preferred Planet Terror to Tarantino's effort - Death Proof - which is 20% grind house and 80% typical Tarantino fodder whereby the characters spend what seems like an eternity exchanging snappy one-liners and pop culture references, while offering almost nothing in the way of character or narrative development. Further more, for its 90 min run time, the first 45mins is spent with a load of characters that you never see again.
I guess it could be argued that Tarantino cleverly turns horror conventions on its head by forcing the viewer to invest time and energy in these characters, only for them to be suddenly snatched from us in an original, but not wholly unexpected way, thus calling into question our preconceptions of everything we may see thereafter. A notion further suggested by the introduction of the new (yet very similar) characters in the remaining 45mins - supposedly we should be expecting a repeat of the first act, but it is clear from the off that these girls are very different from the last unfortunate bunch.
If this generic tinkering was his intention it didn't work for me. I was left with a feeling that I had just wasted the best part of an hour of my life watching attractive women spouting unlikely Tarantinoisms, only for the whole thing to begin again with a load of new, yet equally attractive characters doing exactly the same thing. I have heard that Tarantino has said these girls talk just like women talk today - well I don't know what women he's hanging out with, but most of the girls I know are not anywhere near as rapier-witted, poetic or downright pretentious as this lot. I think it's more a case of this is how Tarantino would talk today if he was a woman. There's far too much exposition and choreographed dialog that tries desperately to recreate some of the genius scripting seen in Dogs or Pulp Fiction. Unfortunately it fails on all counts, and while the car chase scene is impressive, it is completely at odds with the rest of a movie that is far too well acted, slick, and rehearsed to be considered part of the Grindhouse canon. Ultimately, we are left with characters we don't really give two shits about, so the Thelma and Louise style retribution is solely for comic effect from caricatures - a tone that is lowered to limbo height for the abrupt farcical conclusion crudely tacked onto the end as if to say "see, I was only messing about! Look how funny and violent Grindhouse is Tarantino style". Kurt was on good Snake Plisken form though, frowning and growling his way though, and all credit to Zoe Bell though, who for a stunt woman put in an excellent acting performance - though if your stunt woman is getting credit for her acting you know the film has gone wrong somewhere.
If Tarantino had wanted a slapstick Charlies Angels with added "MotherF*#ker!" business he should'v made one from the out set. I was left with a feeling that poor old Quentin was happily making another Tarantino movie, until someone (probably Rodriguez) reminded him that this was supposed to be a Grindhouse flick. Of course I could be taking it all too seriously, as neither film is supposed to be taken as a piece of cinematic art, but where Planet Terror succeeds in introducing the genre to a new breed of movie-goer with tongue firmly in cheek, Death Proof feels more like the bastard offspring of Pulp Fiction and Britteny Spears's Crossroads
than Grindhouse, like we'v seen and heard it all before, but much much better.
I'd give it 7 out of 10 for both films or 8 for Planet Terror alone or 5 just for Death Proof. Don't believe the hype people.