I'm rather fond of "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead," so George A. Romero's next film in his famous zombie series is right up my alley. As you may or may not remember, the other films featured the corpses of the dead returning to life and preying upon the living devouring flesh and the like. You can only kill the zombies by destroying the brain. Needless to say, Romero broke new ground in film violence.

"Land of the Dead" is the follow up to the critical and financial dissapointment "Day of the Dead." Zombies have just about taken over the world and a small civilization of humans still exist within a walled off city ruled over by rich evil man Kaufman (Dennis Hopper). Our heroes are soldiers/bikers who raid nearby dead towns for food and supplies. One soldier, Cholo (John Leguizamo), wants to join Fiddler's Green, a skyscraper complex in the center of the walled area where the rich folk live while the poor starve. Kaufman rejects him, so Cholo steals Dead Reckoning, a missile equipped vehicle, and he threatens to destroy the city if he is not paid $5 million. It is up to the remaining soldiers to stop him and at the same time deal with zombies who have mysteriously grown intelligent and have begun following a leader zombie named Big Daddy on a trek to the city.

Yeah, it's cheesy, but it's part of the Romero charm. The zombies bite, dismember, devour and kill many humans and the gore comes out in gallons. Typical Romero. As a zombie movie, it is simply a good movie. Good acting (especially by Hopper, who is hilarious), direction, action, etc, but all Romero movies have also been social commentaries, and as a social commentary, "Land of the Dead" is...um...different, to say the least.

"Night" was about racism. "Dawn" was about consumerism. "Land"...is about tolerance? So, it seems that the zombies are not ALL bad, but only are "only looking for a place to go" and the fact that they have been eating innocent people for 90 minutes doesn't really mean anything. Um, okay George. I swallowed it in the theatre, but I'm not really swallowing it now.

"Land of the Dead" is worth the time of any Romero fan, but those not accustomed to his work may be turned

© Written by Jacob Hall

How We Rated This Film TC Candler -     Richard Propes - C Jacob Hall - B

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