Land of the Dead (2005)

Why so much hype?

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Am I Missing Something?

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

George A. Romero finally was able to continue his legendary "living dead" series, 20 years after "Day of the Dead", with this apocalyptic horror / action film. Zombies are now everywhere you look, but in a community dubbed Fiddler's Green, people are protected by the fact that the city is surrounded on three sides by rivers. And zombies haven't learned to swim...yet. The less fortunate are left to fend for themselves while rich people like Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) live in luxurious high rises. Trouble arises when Kaufmans' errand boy Cholo DeMora (John Leguizamo) is not compensated for his services, and becomes disgruntled, stealing a cutting edge vehicle called Dead Reckoning and intending to use its weapons."Land of the Dead" in no way compares to Romeros' original trilogy: "Night", "Dawn", and "Day". Nothing here is destined to become iconic, although Dead Reckoning is itself pretty cool. The action is decent, the violence and makeup effects good (despite the overuse of digital gore), and some of the supporting characters (like Robert Joy's slow witted burn victim Charlie) are interesting or amusing (Leguizamo is great fun). However, Romeros' expected social commentary component may be a little too on the nose and unsubtle here, with the upper class seen as largely villainous and the unruly lower class left out in the cold. Kaufman in particular is pretty one dimensional, but Hopper is good in the role.Simon Baker ('The Mentalist') is a passable hero, but he is very well supported by Leguizamo, Joy, the sultry Asia (daughter of Dario) Argento as a hooker whose fortunes keep changing, and Eugene Clark, who gets the showcase role of "Big Daddy", a zombie with an especially commanding presence who is shown to be able to communicate with and lead others of his kind. Horror / zombie buffs will appreciate the cameos by a select few performers.There's nothing special here, but "Land" does entertain in capable enough fashion.Seven out of 10.

After countless zombie rip-offs, spin-offs and comedy, the man who single-handedly invented the genre returns with the long-awaited fourth 'dead' film. Sadly, LAND OF THE DEAD is separated from Romero's trilogy not just by the long years that have passed since 1985's DAY OF THE DEAD. LAND OF THE DEAD is content to offer a straightforward action-flick and in this instance, it plays a lot like the previous year's DAWN OF THE DEAD remake. Scenes of atmospheric horror are thrown aside in place of gore, and indeed the bloodshed is what this film focuses on; there's more grue and gut-ripping here than in the first three films put together, and Romero positively wallows in the violence and carnage.The story is wafer-thin, and things haven't really progressed on the planet since DAWN OF THE DEAD happened. Humans are walled up inside a compound, zombies rule the street, and a massive armoured vehicle (just like the one in the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake) figures in the proceedings quite predominantly. Scenes of plot exposition are countered by lots of shooting and subsequent images of zombies being splattered; it's a veritable bloodbath here, and extra gravitas is brought about by Greg Nicotero's special effects; they're more realistic, and bloodier, than ever. The zombie make-up is spot on, with each zombie looking particularly individualised now, although I could have done without some of the CGI effects that ruin the authenticity a little bit.Romero's casting, however, is spot on, aside from his bizarre choice for lead role; Simon Baker, an Australian unknown, is far too vanilla and clear-cut as the hero, and totally uninteresting as a result (his boring character in the script doesn't help much either). Better are the supporting players, including John Leguizamo in one of the biggest and best acting performances I've seen him give, and the ever-sexy Asia Argento as the kick-ass heroine – Argento does this sort of thing in her sleep, and should have been cast in the RESIDENT EVIL movies in my opinion; she would have been ten times better than that talentless Milla Jovovich. Elsewhere, Dennis Hopper chews the scenery with aplomb, and seems to be having a great time as always; his enthusiasm kind of rubs off. Best of all is Robert Joy as a sniper sporting horrific burns injuries, and subsequently looking even weirder than usual. The big black zombie guy is also great.

The zombie genre is filled to the brim with countless entries, each attempting to brand their style with a new outlook and imaginative theme to fight for a spot in out positive memory. Land Of The Dead, a 2004 effort, shakes out its sleeves and brings us an enjoyable concept, peppy, likable characters, a world all its own and charming zombies who end up being characters of their own, instead of endless hordes. Then again, it's directed by genre pioneer George A. Romero, so I expect nothing less. The setting is Chicago, many years after an outbreak, when the dust has began to settle. The rich and affluent live in swanky protected high rise Fiddler's Green, presided over by demented CEO Kaufman (Dennis Hopper). The poor live as plebians in a surrounding slum, and the zombies gather outside the city, kept at bay by a barricade. Regular supply runs into the hostile zone are spearheaded by level minded Riley (Simon Baker), and volatile hothead Cholo (John Leguizamo). Fairly soon the zombies, who it seems still have a modicum of brains left in their head (or just feral instinct) form a posse, and use their strength by numbers to attack the human stronghold. The charming opening sequence shows them haplessly trying to recreate the routines and activities they had as humans, musical instruments, filling gas tanks etc., bogged down by their animalistic affliction. It's an inspired scene, only made more fascinating when a combat vehicle trundles through and shoots a bunch of them. The others scream in fury at the humans in a way that seems almost vaguely... human. So they muster the undead Rohirrim and slowly but surely make their way to the 'civilized' city to raise all hell. Riley and his socially awkward sharpshooter pal Charlie (Robert Joy) team up with tough street girl Slack (Asia Argento) and attempt to high tail it out of town, up to remote Canada. Cholo has plans of his own, trying to manipulate and strong arm Kaufman into giving him a suite at The Green. When the zombies show up, all plans go out the window, forcing all parties into action to defend the city from the relentless undead. There's all kinds of re purposed tanks and army vehicles involved in the fun, and any kind of weapon you can imagine to decimate them. The film looks slick as hell, with clearly a ton of effort put into both creature and costume design. Baker makes a stalwart hero, Argento is sizzling as always and fires up the screen with her inky persona, and Hopper hams it up to kingdom come, riffing on the abrasive Donald Trump archetype. It's Leguizamo, however who steals the show, as usual. He gives Cholo a streetsmart, diamond hard edge and coal black, pissy sense of humour, walking a playful line between hero and outright asshole. Romero directs with a colorful sense of social satire, and yet never lets it get in the way. The zombies steal the show, and aren't just fleshy scenery fpr people to blast apart, but amusing caricatures all their own. One of my favourites in the undead genre.

This movie starts off with the old Universal pictures opening. Then after the opening credits roll the movie starts off in some old town where some survivors try to find medicine. We're also introduced to this big van/truck/tank called Dead Reckoning that shoots down most of the zombies there. After that the survivors to this island city which is supposed to be their home.There's also one place in the middle of it all in called Fiddler's Green where people forget about the zombies. While everyone else outside lives dirt poor like in the Edgar Allan Poe story Mask of the Red Death where the prince has a big party in the castle and forgets about the plague outside.There's also this on guy Cholo, played by John Leguizamo, tries to get a place in Fiddlers Green by persuading the owner. Played by Dennis Hopper and this movie was when I was starting to noticing him. There's also a sense of deja vu since both actors were in the Super Mario Brothers Movie if you remember that at all.When Cholo doesn't get his place he takes Dead Reckoning and threatens to destroy the city. The stars of Shawn of the Dead are in this bar scene also as zombies since George Romero was a fan of the movie. There's also a zombie, Big Daddy, then gets an army of zombies and slowly make they're way to the city. When they rise out of the water it like from the scene from Carnival of Souls. That was from what I've heard of it that is, but I'll have to see Carnival of Souls myself one day.When the main hero get's to Dead Reckoning he reasons with Cholo and they go back to the city. Which is getting overrun by the zombies and the Ton Savini biker makes a cameo as a zombie. Some of the blood is CGI which is fine by me since he probably had a small budget.This movie also has a dark setting, literally, which creates a lot of atmosphere. Not as good as Night, Dawn, or Day but maybe because there was so many zombie movies around at the time it came out. I might not review Diary of the Dead or Survival of the Dead since I saw a but of Survival of the Dead and thought it was kind of dumb. Also for Diary of the Dead's way of filming as a home video horror movie I don't quite like. That sub-genre is just a little too overused a bit but I like the idea of that anyone can be a filmmaker.