Terra dos Mortos

Land of the Dead - The 4th part of George A. Romero's zombie quadrillogy. It's been decades since the dead began to walk the Earth, and now they practically own it (except for Canada for some reason). There is one last little mega-city that is surrounded by electric fences, armed patrols and barbed wire on one side, and nothing but water on all other four sides, because the dead supposedly don't like water. Despite the fact that the surrounding lands are rife with zombies, this metropolis is incredibly corrupt. All thanks to evil bureaucrat Kaufman (Dennis Hooper, who I had a ball watching) who makes all but a select few rich folks (who have never seen or fought a real zombie) live in slums. There you can get your picture taken with zombies, or watch zombie fights (they fight over animals and the occasional human). There are a few mercenaries paid to make runs in a giant tank truck for precious commodities in the outside world.

Now I like George and could thank him endlessly for starting the zombie franchise, but he has always favored gore just a little more over character development, and has always liked his zombies just a LOT more than his humans. Heck in this movie, the zombies are practically the good-guys! They're just like you and me, except they rip people's arms in two (and I do mean length-wise) and tear belly button rings out of people. They are actually pretty intelligent and moderately fast at walking. By far the biggest threats in Romero's movies (most notably "Big Daddy" (Eugene Clark). For the most part though, it works, and it's good gory fun. Except the character development thingy. While I don't begrudge Romero for having fun with his zombies, I wasn't too sympathetic to Riley (Simon Baker) or Slack (Asia Argento). Riley, like Romero it seems, is just tired of character development as he has Riley say "I'm fed up with back-stories". But Riley dear boy, that's how the audience grows to care about you. Slack almost kills several of her fellow team-mates and does not grow at all, but that's the script's fault. Both of these characters, however are played well for what the actors are given.

Surprisingly the secondary characters are far more endearing. Cholo (John Leguizamo) was not only believable as a merc, but I was quite sympathetic to him as he realized that he was a pon. "Pilsbury" (Pedro Miguel Arce) and Charlie (Robert Joy) are endearing and funny.

So the effects are good. The story is iffy. The acting is good. The character development is iffy. The ending is really lame. This gets an overall B

The undead have taken over the world. What traces of humanity remain have taken to backing themselves into protected cities and getting supplies by venturing out in heavily armoured groups to raid smaller towns. One such city is formerly Pittsburgh, where the rivers provide natural protection and those who organised themselves into leaders have created a world of near normality while the rest live in the streets with less material and more risk. One of the raiders (Riley) is sure that he has seen evidence of learning among the undead but events within the city itself cause him more concern as his former second-in-command decides to take violent revenge for being betrayed by city boss Kaufman.

How you receive this film is more about you than the film itself (which I suppose is true of most things in a way – everything has a market somewhere). Those that will love it will be those looking for gore as their horror because the film delivers this in spades. The camera lingers on flesh eating, mutilation and some very painful sequences that had me looking away. However the problem for me was that it was just gore – not horror, not scares and not anything that made me feel uncomfortable in my own house. A minor criticism perhaps but let me assure you that me and zombie movies do not mix well and not only do I get scared during the films but also for days afterwards by the idea of it all.

Surprisingly then I was able to watch Land of the Dead with a detached air and it never convinced me of the world I was being shown. Part of this is budget but that's not all of it as I never bought the characters or main story either. The story in particular narked me because it did dominate the main horror (the mass of undead) and spent too much time on the detail of the human interactions and betrayal. In itself this is not a killer and indeed recently I saw The Mist do a very good job of making human monsters just as scary as the rubber ones but here Romero doesn't make as much of his social commentary as he could have done – OK so we have the haves and have-nots but beyond that we don't get much in the way of intelligence.

The cast reflect the low budget but are good enough for the level that this is working on. Baker is a bit bland but OK, while Leguizamo at least adds a bit of energy to his character. Hopper takes on a fairly easy role of just being a "Mr Big" character that even done in P Diddy/Daddy music videos in the past. Argento is sexy but little else while Joy is pretty good in his support character. Clark is better than a zombie character will get him credit for and makes his stuff quiet interesting and engaging. In regards getting the best "urgh" impact from his gore budget, Romero does well but I was surprised that he didn't do more as a writer or as director to do better with the characters or the tension/danger within the story; like I said, I was surprised by how much of an observer this film allowed me to be.

Worth a look for gore fans and those seeking out some old school zombies in the middle of these modern "28 Days Later" type ones but really this film is a bit of a disappointment in just how average it is. The gore is great but it produces repulsion, not scares and Romero cannot create a sense of genuine horror or fear as he tries to deal with a narrative that takes more than it gives.

Zombie films are a dime a dozen and even the ones that are lacking are enough of an entertainment. Romero's Land of the dead comes across as generic. Despite being steeped in darkness, it lacks the taut pacing and nerve-jangling suspense of 28 Days Later, and doesn't have the tongue-in-cheek approach evident in Shaun of the Dead. It's got great makeup, though. Credit Gregory Nicotero (who replaces Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead's Tom Savini) for making the zombies more frightening than campy. Ultimately, however, copious gore and rotting flesh can only do so much for a movie, and the lack of ambition in Romero's storyline is where Land of the Dead fails. The movie will appeal to those with a penchant for zombie flicks, but is unlikely to reach further - not even to the broader "general horror" market. It's not startling or frightening enough. However, this is a zombie film and that in itself makes it worth a glance.

George A. Romero's long-awaited return to the genre he helped create is a very, very mixed bad if not a consistently entertaining one.

Romero's greatest strength as a director have always been his creativity, creating iconic moments and literally raising the zombie from the ground up on low budgets and tight schedules. Thus, it's more than a little disappointing to see LAND, the first in his DEAD series to see major studio backing and his highest-budget to date, be so riddled with a distinct lack of imagination. Romero's depiction of a zombie-infested, post-apocalypse never feels as bleak or gritty as the brief glimpses afforded in his predecessors. Characters still speak of things like cars, countries, and pop culture in the present tense; what's left of society still somehow needs and uses currency that should've long ago been rendered worthless. The class divide still looks like the class divide now, shopping malls and luxury highrises replete with waiting lists and Boards of Directors are still open and operational as usual. It all feels artificial, incomplete; not completely surprising for a script strung together from unused pieces of DAY, but nonetheless disappointing.

The blockbuster budget is both a blessing and a curse. The scope of the film, though grander and more far-reaching then any of its predecessors combined, still feels claustrophobic and (ironically) devoid of life, and not in the good way. A long-dead Pittsburgh is never more than a few samey, empty-looking suburban streets with a suspicious lack of decaying carcasses and overgrown plant life. DAY's opening three minutes of a long-abandoned, desolate Orlando is more chilling and more grounded then anything this film has to offer. The relatively-straightforward plot often feels meandering and listless, going off on random tangents and introducing a rotating cast of wacky side characters more memorable than any of our leads. Said supporting cast, including standouts John Leguizamo, Robert Joy, Dennis Hopper, Eugene Clark, and Asia Argento, are this film's salvation, giving memorable and borderline-campy performances to make up for the nothing lead that is Simon Baker. He's a bland, generic "blonde hero guy" who's supposedly a misanthropic anti-hero but never comes across as anything more then mildly whiny, existing solely to perpetuate an already blatant political allegory that beats the audience over the head with how obvious it is. Then again, his spotlight is often drowned out by the mass of other supporting characters, which proves another fault by Romero. There are too many characters, and only so much runtime.

And yet in spite of that, the film's still immeasurably entertaining. Romero injects that indelible "X" factor that permeated his previous works and made them so beloved. The zombie makeup and gore effects, courtesy of Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero, are as good as they've ever been (save for some questionable CGI). The aforementioned supporting cast is lively and plays off each other well. And the action is as solid and gloriously pulpy as its ever been, one of the few areas where the budget really shines. Romero's no slouch, even at his most average he's still miles ahead of many other directors in the same sphere. LAND is deeply flawed, deeply imperfect, but then again you could say the same about what came before. It's still a solid B-movie, and at the end of the day that's all George ever wanted to make.

Rating: * 1/2 out of ****

Land of the Dead has been long-awaited for a good two decades. Set presumably some time after Day of the Dead, the plot focuses on a human population that has managed to survive by barricading themselves within the "remains" of Pittsburgh by means of guards and electrified fences (as well as rivers that are bordering the city). The rich reside in a tower called Fiddler's Green but everyone else is forced to live in the streets, with only the false hope of being able to attain high-class status.

One guy dissatisfied with living in the streets, Cholo (John Leguizamo), doesn't take kindly to the mayor's (Dennis Hopper) refusal, especially having been his lackey for three years with the expectation of reward. So Cholo steals the armored vehicle Dead Reckoning and threatens to destroy Fiddler's Green unless he gets his five million dollars (which is the amount needed to get high-class status, but did he really expect to be welcomed into Fiddler's Green with open arms after this incident?). Refusing to cooperate, the mayor hires Riley (Simon Baker) to bring Dead Reckoning back. Meanwhile, the undead are planning to invade the city thanks to the evolving zombie called Big Daddy, and given this couldn't happen at a worst possible time, you can guess what'll happen next.

I'm going to put it bluntly, this film is by far the worst of Romero's zombie movies, lacking in so many ways that I would still feel the same way even if I didn't have its predecessors to compare it with. But there are its predecessors, and having already seen three prior films in which characters must hold off scores of zombies at bay from inside some "safe" location before it's ultimately penetrated by the undead, let's just say seeing this a fourth time gets a little repetitive.

The film does have elements worth appreciating, the cinematography is excellent and easily the best of the series; I especially loved the stylish and creepy nighttime shot of zombies shuffling within a fog-shrouded forest. The movie is also the most action-packed of the series, so the non-stop gunfire keeps the movie watchable. The production values are also pretty good considering the budgetary limitations (some of the f/x still look pretty weak, though).

Otherwise, LOTD is rushed, unfulfilling, and does little its predecessors haven't already accomplished. What new material it does aim for is poorly conceived, a shocker considering Romero's had twenty years to mull over this material. Take the city, for instance, it's never fully explained how the monetary system works or where the electricity is coming from. I was able to suspend my disbelief for the latter in Dawn of the Dead, but I'm not willing to let Romero pull the same trick twice, especially when the inner workings of the city should have been further explored.

The movie's social commentary feels like a slapdash effort of contemporary issues tossed together without any real coherency, with characters acting in blatantly idiotic fashion for no other purpose than to continue serving the commentary. The original Dawn of the Dead's commentary on consumerism worked because it was a natural outgrowth of the way the characters' believably behaved (if you had free reign to a mall, you likely wouldn't want to leave, would you?).

Yet here, Romero feels compelled to ensure that Hopper's character won't dare negotiate, even preferring to leave the city (to go where exactly?) and kill an associate rather than give up five million bucks. To keep the commentary going, Romero even has Hopper take all his cash with him, even though I had to wonder what it was good for. Considering his demands, the same problem also applies to Cholo. Are there other cities/outposts out there using the same currency as well? If so, why not at least mention it so we don't question the characters' motivations, especially considering it's the basic framework that leads to so many deaths later in the film.

There are further instances of stupidity, such as Riley choosing not to warn anyone inside the city about Big Daddy. The soldiers protecting the city prove incompetent in almost every fashion, with one guard actually rappelling into a crowd of zombies. Later in the film, there's even a guy who wears headphones while he's outside the city, by himself, and not at all far from known zombie territory. This scene is also indicative of the countless jump scares Romero attempts, all of them obvious and hilariously overdone.

As for the zombies, there's the storyline involving Big Daddy, an undead gas station attendant who's inexplicably getting smarter. Much of the appeal of zombies is seeing them act out as mindless drones with no other motivation than to eat human flesh. That Big Daddy is able to think and seems to actually want revenge for his fallen zombie brethren completely mutes the sense of dread and terror that came with zombies acting on just pure instinct.

Most astoundingly, Romero takes this a step further and actually wants us to sympathize with the zombies. I shouldn't be surprised by this development, as it's all been clearly leading up to this point since Bub's humanity in Day of the Dead and the constant "they're us, we're them" lines. Doesn't mean I have to like it, especially when the previous installments have made it clear being a zombie isn't something to cherish and the general fact that they like to eat people doesn't exactly make me want to side with them. For me, LOTD continues Romero's downward spiral, and I still haven't liked a movie of his since the 80s.