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 Paul Zimmerman
"Romero Unleashed!"
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After years of dwelling in the fringes of cinema, George A. Romero re-emerges much like the lumbering un-dead he helped create back in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead. His new “Dead” film, Land of the Dead, marks the fourth official trek down the flesh-eating road, and I officially christen it the third best. (Although beating out the turgid "Day of the Dead" isn’t too hard.)Land of the Dead loosely picks up after Day and is set in a teeming hell-world where the elite live high above the damned in a tower called Fiddler’s Green. How bad is it? It’s run by Dennis Hopper. How bad is it down below, where the damned roam beside “the walkers”? So bad that people like John Leguizamo are outwitting 99% of the battling populace comprised of the bit and un-bit.
At heart, Land is an old-fashioned “mission” movie where our protagonists must journey from location A to location B. For this group of Landers, location B (AKA sanctuary) is Canada. While it’s never said just WHERE in Canada they are going. one is assumes anything past the border is safer than anywhere in the USA -- and they may have a point.
Our heroes’ choice of transport is a heavily armored vehicle (nicknamed Dead Reckoning), that is used by the (literal) higher-ups to get goodies from outside the besieged city. Leading the new-fangled War Wagon is Riley -- ably played by Simon Baker -- and a hooker with a heart of clichés, as played by Asia Argento.
The big difference between this and the other Dead films is that it seems the undead are getting a bit un-dumb. No longer dependable to just walk about and wait patiently to get shot in the head, they are now beginning to learn things like how to fire a gun and (even more amazing) how to click that thing on the gas nozzle so you don’t have to hold it down while you fill your gas tank.
Along the way Hopper seems to be having a ball, Argento seems a bit bored and Leguizamo irritates in a way previous screen appearances would never had set you up for. But Romero seems unleashed, confident, and firing on all cylinders. Usually clunky with actors (see Knightriders, Martin or The Crazies for all the celluloid proof you could ever want), and downright awkward with scene progression and plot machinations, here Romero seems set free. Set pieces move at a fast clip, the dialog is sharp and concise -- and generally, this is a good, splatter blast at the movies. Sure, it goes slack in the last 15 minutes (and in horror films that’s tantamount to blasphemy) and sure, it all plays like some pilot for a cable mini-series (which, for the record, I would gladly watch). Sometimes he lays on the social commentary too thick and let’s face it, this whole elite above us, workers below was cornball when Star Trek did it back in the ‘60s.
When all is said and done, an undead movie is only as good (or bad) as those around it. Given that Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are certified classics that started an entire genre (along with a little assist from I Am Legend, which rocks, but I don’t want to get off track while I’m on a roll), let the debate begin:
Land of the Dead
As good as Shaun of the Dead? No.
Better than the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead? No.Better than just about everything else in the last ten years featuring flesh eating, must shoot them in the head to kill ‘em, lumbering ghouls? Yes. Absolutely.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=12288&reviewer=348
originally posted: 06/29/05 13:29:17
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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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