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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 27.53%
Worth A Look: 48.88%
Average: 9.55%
Pretty Bad: 6.18%
Total Crap: 7.87%
15 reviews, 88 user ratings
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| Land of the Dead |
by Erik Childress
"It’s The Summer Of George!"
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2004 saw three zombie films hit the multiplexes; a remake, a sequel and a satire. Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead quieted a lot of angry fans concerned with traipsing all over one of the best horror films ever made by turning it into a hyperkinetic action film that paid its respects while becoming its own entity. Shaun of the Dead was more than just a riotous parody of the genre and Resident Evil: Apocalypse was needed to remind us how incompetency threatens to fan out the very life that George Romero birthed. Romero is now back, 20 years since the last of his zombie epics, to show the kids how it’s done. Bleeding plenty of action and gore for the loyal faithful, Romero’s satiric cultural slant has never been as finely tuned and elevates just another chapter into something deeper and scarier.From Night to Dawn to Day to TODAY, we’re into society’s full-on integration within the zombie plague. Big corporations now often safe havens for those who can afford it while the poor are left to huddle in the streets as a potential smorgasbord. The in-betweens are the working class, doing jobs for the powers-that-be including gathering supplies and taking out the walking dead that get in their paths. Riley (Simon Baker) and Cholo (John Leguizamo) are the leaders of one such group, scurrying the streets of Pittsburgh in a full-stocked ass-kickin’ ATV known as Dead Reckoning.
Cholo has dreams of the good life, but is rebuked by the self-empowered Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) who sits atop the livable mall known as Fiddler’s Green. With few options left in a zombie-occupied territory, Cholo and his gang steal Dead Reckoning and threaten action if their demands aren’t meant. This soon turns into a Pat Garrett/Billy the Kid situation with Riley being recruited to hunt down his friend with the help of his scarred, but loyal friend, Charlie (Robert Joy) and prostitute Slack (Asia Argento, whose legendary father produced and helped score 1978's Dawn), both whom he rescued from certain death. It’s a great setup for zombie battles and tested loyalties, all while the flesheaters have continued to learn and begin a slow march to the fenced-off city center.
It’s all part of the multi-evolution that Romero began back in 1968. Like the humans that they once were, the zombies began as mindless eating machines preying upon the countryside with only one desire. In Dawn of the Dead they began to remember who they were and expanded their search. Land of the Dead flows almost seamlessly from Day of the Dead where the military had sectioned off portions of the city and came to the frightening, yet hesitant realization that some of their enemies were finding the ability to think. The undead were rolling with the times and Romero’s hammer-and-nail approach is more welcome than ever.
It started as an allegory on racism and minority prejudice (including women), elevated into a satire of a culture cannibalized by consumerism an into an interesting (if less successful) statement of the military becoming the end-all, be-all brains of our nation’s operation. Land of the Dead obviously feeds on the paranoia of post-9/11 America. And in case you doubt that, look for the shot of the plane crashed through a building or Kaufman’s pledge that “we do not negotiate with terrorists.” Romero doesn’t mince his images on the class system. The haves make their own power and the have-nots are left to the wolves. The outright cynicism in Romero’s thinking has not only turned him to partially siding with the plight of the zombies but also suggesting that it may be too late to solve the terror of us feeding off one another with anything but a few rockets. Or moving to Canada.
No villains are worth their salt without equally rootable heroes and that stock rises thanks to the likes of terrific work from Baker, Joy and Leguizamo, who gets the film’s best line when staring his fate right in the eye. Hopper does a superb job in not turning Kaufman into just another frothing villain drunk with power. We have already been programmed to hate a character like this the moment he appears on the screen with his distraction promises to the presumed brainless masses. He is an instrument of hate not just for liberals or blue staters; he’s the bully with all the best toys determined to pick us last for the big game. Although I’m sure many audiences will revel in the moment he’s abandoned with nothing but a few bags of money and his car filling up with the very fuel that’s no doubt been a precious commodity to him and his minions. He's a symbol just as the film's literal fireworks are; a symbol of our independence used to keep the walking mindless in line in times of crisis until they become intelligent enough to ignore the pretty lights and take action.Our heroes are never quite in as much peril as the Richie Riches of this food court-morphed culture. That may make for less tension, but there’s also a cockeyed optimism that being on the side of right can produce its own blanket of safety; whether physically or morally. Land of the Dead is so tight and moves so swiftly (at only 93 mins) that its hard to fault Romero’s technique for getting us in, entertaining the hell out of us, making his point and getting us out in near record time. True Romero fans will have no problems forgiving any shortcomings or comparisons you can attach to it for they are given precisely what they are paying for; a blood-and-guts spectacular, one of the classic zombie kills of all time (watch out for that head), a priceless Tom Savini cameo and an answer to the criticism that Day of the Dead was all talk and no action. For the rest of us, Romero has taken action once again and we should embrace, or at the very least listen to what he’s saying in-between the carnage, before we become part of it.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=12288&reviewer=198
originally posted: 06/24/05 14:00:36
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 CineVegas Film Festival For more in the 2005 CineVegas Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 Edinburgh Film Festival. For more in the 2005 Edinburgh Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
24-Jun-2005 (R)
DVD: 18-Oct-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
04-Aug-2005
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