Director: George A. Romero
Stars: Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy, Eugene Clark, Joanne Boland, Tony Nappo
Zombies have taken over the world and humans have built a city to keep them safe. However, the city is divided into to parts. In a tall skyscraper live privileged people, while the rest of the population have to deal with living in squalid conditions on the street. Riley (Baker) goes on raids and wants to escape to somewhere with no people and no zombies but Kaufman (Hopper) is in control and he rules with an iron fist. While tensions rises among the living, the dead are starting to develop new skills, and Big Daddy (Clark) begins to learn.
That last sentence is going to put a lot of people off, so I’ll start by discussing that aspect of Land of the Dead. It’s an unconventional take on zombies as usually they’re presented as mindless, stagnant beings that have no intelligence of ability to reason. Big Daddy develops awareness and starts to lead his zombie brethren in war against the living, who he has seen gleefully mow down the zombies. At first it struck me as a big of a gimmick, but it’s an interesting concept to explore although I feel that it would be worth of its own film rather than being one of multiple plots. It’s actually moving to see Big Daddy show pain as he watches other zombies crumble under the hail of gunfire, and you get a sense of discovery when he learns to use a gun. It actually reminds me of Caesar in the recent Planet of the Apes films, although Land of the Dead doesn’t offer an explanation as to what sparked this change in Big Daddy, and although it hints that other zombies are going through the same thing they could also simply be following Big Daddy’s lead. Furthermore, at the end it’s hinted that they’re just looking to survive, same as us, but again this position could have been explored more.
The human tension is given more weight thanks to a good cast. Baker, Leguizamo and Hopper are good actors, and Joy takes a forgettable character an imbues him with some charisma. The commentary isn’t subtle but it is relevant, yet it’s not particularly original or scathing either. There was lip service paid to a rebellion being formed but this wasn’t developed much and it felt like I was supposed to empathize with these characters more than I actually did.
There were some set-pieces that I liked and the squelching make-up of the zombies was cool. The deaths were pretty standard for a zombie film but still enjoyable, and the vehicle, Dead Reckoning, was badass.
Overall Land of the Dead attempts to explore some new territory with zombies, but treads over familiar ground with the living. As a result it feels somewhat jumbled and if it wasn’t for Leguizamo I probably wouldn’t have kept engaged. I just think if they wanted to give zombies intelligence they should have run with that as the main plot rather than going over the rich/poor divide that has been depicted so many times. If you like zombies and you want to watch it because you’ve seen the other …of the Dead films then you’ll probably get something out of it, otherwise it’s fairly forgettable.
