George A. Romero's latest entry in his much-vaunted Dead series is not as fresh as his genre-inventing original, Night of the Living Dead. But Land of the Dead does deliver on the gore and zombies-feasting-on-flesh action.
George A. Romero's latest entry in his much-vaunted Dead series is not as fresh as his genre-inventing original, Night of the Living Dead. But Land of the Dead does deliver on the gore and zombies-feasting-on-flesh action.
George A. Romero, who revolutionized the American horror film in 1968 with the instant classic Night of the Living Dead, returns to his dystopian zombie cycle with this horror thriller. In Land of the Dead, the zombies whose numbers had been slowly but steadily growing through Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead now dominate the streets of most American cities, while urban skyscrapers have been taken over by surviving humans, usually greed-addled opportunists who allow the living to stay in
their fortified compounds for a price. Guarding the buildings are rough-and-tumble mercenaries who have learned to do battle with the zombies, making use of powerful weapons to gain advantage. But as the zombie civilization grows, the creatures have begun to slowly evolve, with their dormant thought processes beginning to awaken, and as unrest begins to ferment among the mercenaries and the entrepreneurs who pay them, the ghouls may have found a way to defeat the last stronghold of humanity. Land of the Dead stars Dennis Hopper as arch capitalist Kaufman, and Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Robert Joy, and Asia Argento as some of the mercenaries; Asia Argento's father, Dario Argento, served as a producer on one of the earlier films in the series, Dawn of the Dead. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Romero's fourth-grade dialogue doesn't help matters, but anyone seeking out the latest achievements in cranial ruptures, spewing-blood gouts, and ground-beef spillage need look no further.
While it's hardly Romero's scariest achievement, it is a thrilling, disturbing commentary on a man-eat-man world that hits just close enough to home to give viewers an uncomfortable pause.
Romero retains his bite: not only does the excessive gore show little signs of compromise to get an R-rating; more importantly, he creates a radically subversive scenario that few contemporary filmmakers would dare to emulate.
A post apocalyptic society has evolved in the wake of the zombie holocaust with the inevitable mix of haves and have nots fighting for what's left of the world's resources, little knowing that the undead are getting organized...Land Of The Dead feels the least like a Romero zombie film of the series. It actually has a
lot more in common with the likes of Escape From New York or Mad Max than Night Of The Living Dead, forsaking the smart social commentary and invention of the earlier films for generic action sequences and gory effects. The C list cast certainly don't help, as all are rather bland and uninteresting as they go through the sci-fi action motions of running around shooting zombies with big guns. Fans can spot some cameos by various undead characters from the previous films and it has enough going on to stave off boredom, but as a whole it looks far more like an imitator than a bona fide instalment in the original series.
February 6, 2007
xGary Xx
Super Reviewer
The dead shall inherit the Earth.Very weak zombie movie. The film didn't even make a tweak to scare you or even impress you, it's all kinda of given and not really surprising, you can tell who will survive at the end. Not scary at all just a little entertaining. All in all, I say it was a mess of a film made by a man
who always seems to do more with less.The living dead have overtaken humanity. The last remnants of the human race live inside a walled city as they come to grips with the situation. The wealthy live in sealed skyscrapers as the poor fend for themselves on the streets. Protecting them is an enormous tank called Dead Reckoning, controlled by a group of people led by Riley. But when Riley loses command of the tank to an insane man bent on destroying the city, he must save it from Dead Reckoning as those who walk beyond the walls of the city slowly develop new abilites and become a much greater threat to humankind.
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