Halloween if quickly approaching, so I am doing horror reviews this month!...Ignore the review of the 2004 series of Batman...and ignore the upcoming ‘Johnny English: Reborn’ review...anyway, I know I’ve started this month already with reviews of ‘Batman’, ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ and ‘Episode 50’, but I can’t post reviews this month without doing a film by the master of horror himself, George A. Romero. Ladies and gentlemen, the night had fallen, the dawn had risen, the day has past, and now the dead have taken over the land, it’s ‘Land of the Dead’!
The holy trilogy of ‘Night/Dawn/Day of the Dead’ are some of the best horror films out there, and the remakes of Night and Dawn are also pretty decent. The Day remake came out three years later, and the less I say about that the better. Then along came ’28 Days Later’ which brought back the zombie genre...despite the fact that ’28 Days Later’ DOES NOT HAVE ZOMBIES!
And so work started on ’Land of the Dead’, something which many, if not all, of Romero’s fans were waiting for in anticipation. The end result...waaaaaas disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, it was good. But, it wasn’t quite up to scratch.
The film focuses on Riley (Simon Baker), who is (at the start of the film) with newbie Mike (Shawn Roberts – soon to be killed off) spying on zombies just before going on a raid for supplies with his friend Charlie (Robert Joy), rival Cholo (John Leguizamo) and a raiding party. Cholo however is dealing with people who Mr. Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) wants rid of; Kaufman is in charge of the city which everyone has taken shelter in, and some worse-off-financially people are complaining that the rich have it better than them. Cholo wants into Fiddler’s Green, the fancy tower block, but Kaufman wants none of it and wants Cholo dead. Cholo, having taken offence to this, steals Dead Reckoning (a tank-style lorry) and plans to shell the Green. Kaufman sends Riley, Charlie, Slack (Asia Argento), Motown (Krista Bridges), Pilsbery (Pedro Miguel Arce) and Manolete (Sasha Roiz) to stop him. However, the undead have evolved into more dangerous predators; they’re smarter. They’ve now learnt to use objects as weapons, form strategies, even a form of communication, and they’re marching on the city.
Wow, that was a mouthful. Plot wise, it’s okay but nothing spectacular shown from the humans. Cholo’s blackmail plot is essentially a load of crap since the freaking Apocalypse occurred; there is no place that will accept money, the Dead have overrun them! It is a good idea to see how people cope with the aftermath of the Apocalypse, trying to reform society and all, but it did a ‘Naughty Bear’, the execution was poor.
Now, there isn’t anything spectacular from the humans, because the humans suck. Big time. Riley is an unlikeable dick, Slack is bland (and she also kills her teammates – granted they are infected, but she shows little to no remorse – as well as shoots Charlie and almost shoots Riley), Kaufman is the clichéd corporate thug who sounds bored, Manolete was greatly underused, and Motown is a bitch.
Only Charlie, Cholo and Pilsbery are likeable. Pilsbery is a well thought out character wonderfully played by Pedro Miguel Arce. Pilsbery has some of the more interesting dialogue, raises some laughs and has a great personality. Cholo meanwhile is more sympathetic than the other humans, bizarrely. But he was the more interesting character, I personally feel he was the best character in the film, and you can tell Leguizamo had fun playing him.
Sadly Charlie is portrayed as a complete moron in every single scene for no real reason. At one point when Slack says she wants to go with Riley to another place, Charlie says he likes being alone, but Charlie can go with him as it’s still pretty much the same thing. And we’re suppose to like Riley?
Oh yeah, Riley, the character we’re suppose to like but don’t. He comes off as such a dick. He has crappy dialogue like “Good shooting Charlie, no such thing as nice shooting,”, ooo! My favourite piece of dialogue “Everyone has a story and I’m sick to death of them,”. Not only does this ruin any back story and character development, but he then contradicts that line (after being asked what his back story is) by saying “I don’t have one. Nothing bad ever happened to me,”. You have a funny definition of the word ‘everyone’ don’t you? He’s supposed to be portrayed as a survivor, a man who has gone through Hell and therefore knows how to navigate it as well as getting people through it safely. The result is a stuck up jerk who thinks he knows everything better than everyone else, and at one point he even threatens to leave Pilsbury and Motown out in the zombie wilderness. He is just so unlikeable, it’s hard to enjoy the film when we’re stuck with him.
Oh, and a side note here, but plot convenience saves the day when Cholo prepares to shell the Green, Riley just so happens to, not only have a tracker to find Dead Reckoning (you know, in case someone happens to steal it), but also has an off switch!
I’ll tell you how you can enjoy this film; see it from the zombies point-of-view. The zombies are portrayed with a softer side to them. They’re more intelligent and more human than the humans, meaning we can relate to them. The zombies are led by Bid Daddy, played brilliantly by Eugene Clark, as well as the other actors and actresses who played the other zombies. Their evolution into sentience and their treatment at the hands of the humans truly remind us that they were once human. We want the zombies to win because they’re likeable and the humans are the scum of the earth. They also give us the best scene when they rise from the depths of the water to enter the city; the cinematography, the sounds, the image were fantastic.
Now, there’s a lying message underneath all this; rich vs. poor. The rich take life for granted and the poor have to struggle with the harsh reality. What a crappy message to try and portray in a zombie movie! What complete and utter rubbish, especially during a zombie Apocalypse when currency shouldn’t exist! And, in fact, the solution of the problem is eat the rich. Yeah. Well, okay, not literally, but the majority of the casualties in this film were the rich. The rich get trapped by an electric fence, the very means which was meant to protect them, and they are eaten alive, then shelled by Dead Reckoning on Riley’s orders. Meanwhile 99% of the poor populace survive...even though the zombies should have marched through the poor people in order to get to the rich. What a load of crap.
So, overall. Well as I said it isn’t a bad piece of film. The acting ranges from terrible to meh to brilliant, as do the characters, the plot is just filler until the zombies reach the city, but the feel of Romero’s zombie films still remain. I do feel that Romero only wanted to do a Dead film from the zombie’s perspective; maybe that’s why 75% of the humans suck. Just watch the film supporting the zombies and you will not be disappointed.
Support the humans, and you’ll struggle to enjoy this movie. Unless you support Cholo, because Cholo is awesome.
But this isn't the biggest disappointment in the modern day Romero zombie trilogy, coming up next, the Diary.
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