Planet Terror (2007)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez. Starring Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Josh Brolin, and Marley Shelton. USA, Color, 105 minutes.

When a chemical bio-weapon is released in the United States, its up to a small group of survivors to wipe out the resulting killer mutant zombie population.

As the first half of Grindhouse (the second being Death Proof), Planet Terror is one hell of a way to start a double feature. It's the most exciting, and one of the funniest, movies to come out in theaters for a long, long time. While Death Proof makes a more serious effort to be a grindhouse b-movie, Planet Terror spoofs and makes homage toward the grindhouse genre. At every dramatic pause, a joke is made. The lead has a gun for a leg. Bruce Willis explodes. It goes over the top and then some, and comes out as a deleriously fun ride.

The cast is definitely an ensemble, with Rose McGowan making a stellar performance as a one-legged former go-go dancer, Freddy Rodriguez kicking zombie ass and delivering non-stop one-liners, Josh Brolin as a mysterious doctor in a troubled marriage, and Marley Shelton as the other half of that marriage who is running from both the zombies and her husband. Michael Biehn plays a Sherrif, Bruce Willis plays a leutenant, Naveen Andrews plays a scientist, Stacy Ferguson (Fergie) plays a stranger with car trouble, and many other recognizable faces fill up the lesser characters in the cast. Tom Savini, gore FX master, shows up as a bumbling gun-toting cop! There's not one bad performance . . . even Quentin Tarantino, who plays "Rapist #1" is convincing. And that's a movie miracle.

It's done in the style of John Carpenter, a legendary action/sci-fi director, and snippets of his recognizable score for Escape From New York can be heard on the soundtrack. It sometimes feels like an even more insane version of Big Trouble in Little China, actually.

And if you still aren't convinced that it's a smashing success, watch the international trailer, which can be found floating around on the Internet. It's all the convincing you'll need.