Land of the Dead review
Eat the rich.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Land of the Dead
Directed by George A. Romero
Written by George A. Romero
Starring Simon Baker, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy, John Leguizamo, Eugene Clark and Pedro Miguel Arce
Land of the Dead Review
George A. Romero popularized the zombie genre. There’s no other way to look at it. Night of the Living Dead was a massively influential and important film. Ten years later, Dawn of the Dead equaled its masterpiece status. These are seminal, lasting works. By the time Day of the Dead arrived in 1985…the genre was heading towards a downturn. The Return of the Living Dead (created as an offshoot of Night by that film’s co-writer John Russo) was a pitch-perfect comedic take on the story. Wait…you may be saying. Day of the Dead is (at worst) very good. The Return of the Living Dead is great. Why were zombies heading towards obscurity?
I don’t have a great answer for that. It happened though. Plenty of zombie movies were made over the next decade and a half. Plenty of non-traditional zombie movies used some of Romero’s concepts too. But the hits were few and far between. As we discussed in our recent review of 28 Days Later ahead of the release of that film’s legacy sequel…zombies came back in a big way around 2002. This time, the pitch-perfect zombie comedy (Shaun of the Dead) arrived almost immediately. But there was no slowing the genre down this time. In fact, 28 Years Later is going strong at the box office as I’m writing this. With zombies back in vogue come the early aughts…the Godfather of the Dead wouldn’t be left out for long.
A lot of the behind the scenes stories about Romero’s six Dead films go the same way. He goes looking for the money to make one. The prospect of a new Romero Dead film in a post-28 Days Later world was an exciting one. So exciting, in fact, that Romero secured the biggest budget he would ever amass for one of these pictures.
Land of the Dead, as with pretty much all Dead films, is a loosely (at best) connected piece of Romero’s zombie puzzle. You’d go insane trying to tie each of the films together. Land opens a few years after the zombie outbreak…and 37 years after Night of the Living Dead. Make sense of it how you will…the stories are meant to capture snapshots of different groups during a zombie uprising. You can tie them all together if you want to. Tom Savini makes a cameo as his biker turned zombie character from Dawn of the Dead. Those few years apparently amounted to at least 27 by that count.
The truth is that it doesn’t matter if Land of the Dead is a sequel to anything or not. Romero plunged the world into a zombie apocalypse and graced us with multiple looks at how people were dealing with that. For the fourth time in the series…Romero had a lot to say about it. Though much of the commentary of Night of the Living Dead was supposedly incidental…there’s no denying its power as a comment on the civil rights movement of the era. Romero said it was incidental…that he cast the best actor he auditioned (Duane Jones) and simply didn’t rewrite the part to reflect that he was a black man. Of course, that is itself a strong commentary…but we’ll move on. Dawn of the Dead tackled capitalism. Day of the Dead, like Romero’s The Crazies five years earlier, focused itself on the speed and efficiency with which our institutions will fail us in a crisis. Land of the Dead targets class inequality.
The haves in this post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh live in a skyscraper protected by surrounding lakes and a fortified electric fence. Everyone else is forced to try and survive on the streets…scrounging for supplies and hoping to see another day. In Romero’s fourth story…that goes for the zombies too. Land’s most interesting idea comes from its normally feeble minded undead walkers. They’re starting to learn. The Dead go through the motions of their old lives…and the tried and true distraction tactics are beginning to wear off. Big Daddy (Eugene Clark) begins to lead them…communicate with them…and, most concerningly, teaches them to cross those rivers.
The zombies are, of course, only a part of the story in Land of the Dead. The main plot revolves around Riley (Simon Baker) and Cholo (John Leguizamo). They begin as part of the same crew…risking their lives to scavenge for supplies. Cholo wants to buy his way out of this life. Riley just wants to drive up north. Cholo’s dreams are dashed by Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) the head of Fiddler’s Green (the tower housing the wealthy). Riley’s die when the car he procured goes missing. Cholo steals Dead Reckoning, a truck designed by Riley to plow through the streets safely. Kaufman sets the two men on a collision course with the promise of Riley being allowed to flee north as planned.
It’s a fun story full of cool characters. The actors are largely a cut above what you’d expect with one notable exception. Dennis Hopper really phones this one in. I’m not saying he needed to go full Frank Booth here…but he’s got to do something. His bored, monotone reactions to everything don’t come across as powerful as much as he’s sleepwalking through this movie. Baker and Leguizamo bring it though. Their individual arcs are fun to watch. Between them and Clark’s Big Daddy…the three most important characters in Land of the Dead provide some strong work.
Land of the Dead moves quickly. It has enough interesting characters to keep things from getting bogged down. Like the previous Romero Dead films…it even has something to say. Night had a downer ending. Dawn provided a little more hope. Land gives us both. The surviving heroes head off to an unsure future…believing in a better place. But Romero makes clear that in his 2005 version of a Dead film…we have more in common with the zombies than the wealthy who manage to find a way to thrive. In some ways…it’s his most profound statement in the franchise. Even if it comes in a good, but mid-tier production.
Scare Value
Land of the Dead can’t live up to Romero’s original Dead trilogy…but it’s easily the best of his second trio of zombie films. He’s still offering social commentary…and the evolution of the dead is an interesting wrinkle. The cast is (largely) solid…even if the dialog their given is lacking. Land of the Dead is a good movie. It’s just buried in the shadows of two masterpieces and one borderline great predecessor.
3/5
Land of the Dead Links
Rent/Buy on VOD from Fandango at Home and Amazon
Buy on Blu-Ray from Amazon
