• Home
• Theatrical
• DVD
• News
• Articles
• Credits
• Forum

Zombie Planet

March 21, 2005

Rated: NR Runtime: 119 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Let me start out by saying that this is a 2.5-star movie that’s thirty minutes away from being a 3-star movie. But it doesn’t need to ADD thirty minutes; it needs to SUBTRACT them!! Supposedly this is the director’s cut, but it’s way too long. Some scenes are unnecessary and other scenes ramble on and on. And not a single scene I’m referring to features zombies. So what does that mean to you, the viewer? It means you have to wait a whole lot longer between zombies feasting on human flesh. So for me, shorter movie = better rating.

Most big-budget zombie movies usually start the story either just before or just as the zombies start to appear. I suppose the screenwriters want to show the daily life of the main characters before the zombie infestation, and then how they react to having to run and fight for their lives, 24/7. And that worked really well the first twenty times I saw it.

In Zombie Planet, however, writer-director George Bonilla avoids that convention and takes a different approach: the zombies took over Earth four years before the story begins, and all of the characters are long-term survivors. But there is a strict class-system in place. The upper-class survivors are well-protected from the hordes of zombies. The middle-class survivors strive to become upper-class while stepping on the backs of the lower-class survivors. It just goes to show that, even after a Zombie Holocaust, humans will still be humans.

The origin of the zombies is one of the most clever bits in the movie, and I won’t spoil it here. All I’m going to say is that it involves low-carb dieting.

I’m sure it’s no surprise that there is plenty of blood and gore in this movie, as well there should be. The zombies have prosthetic blue faces, and the level of detail is impressive. The level of violence, however, wasn’t as high as I prefer in zombie movies. Most of that is due to the fact that guns are “outlawed” on Zombie Planet (i.e. the filmmakers didn’t want to pay for permits, firearms experts, etc.) A zombie movie just ain’t a zombie movie without a couple of heads getting blown to pieces. To their credit, the filmmakers apparently went shopping at Paul E. Dangerously’s yard sale, because there was a fight with barbed-wire baseball bats. They’re hardcore.

I was very pleased to see some topless female nudity during the first two minutes of the movie. Sure, it was a zombie, but this zombie had a very hot body. Little did I know that was the last T&A I’d see in the movie. After such a strong T&A beginning, I was disappointed.

I’ll be honest, the production value on this movie needed a lot more work, specifically the visuals. One of the commentary tracks features four (4!) cinematographers. Maybe that’s why the cinematography sucked so bad. If you have one cinematographer who doesn’t know what he’s doing, at least the shots are consistently bad. But when you have FOUR different cinematographers who don’t know what they’re doing… well, you get the idea.

Despite its flaws, I enjoyed the core story of Zombie Planet. It was a relief to see that Bonilla created his own unique zombie universe (instead of taking the easy route and churning out another Romero rehash). This DVD features a teaser trailer for Zombie Planet 2: Adam’s Revenge. I think it looks much better than the first movie, and I look forward to seeing it.

Zombie Planet is definitely worth a rental. It features a fresh take on zombie mythology, and will hopefully spawn a number of superior sequels. It’s certainly possible: Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead are significantly better than the original Night of the Living Dead.

Seen it? How many stars do you give it?

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Comments

Copyright © 2007 Movies for Guys · Log in