Theatre of the Dead #13 - Land of the Dead (2005)

Director: George A. Romero Stars: Simon Baker, John Leguizamo

Review:


After 30 years George A. Romero, the father of the zombie genre, comes back with Land of the Dead (2005). The expectation is high and critical response is generally good. However to me, some of the magic from the original trilogy is gone. The situation is ridiculous and it is difficult to suspend my disbelief on the whole premise.

Apparently this movie loosely picks off after the original trilogy. Now that people have developed a systemic way of dealing with the whole zombie apocalyze thing. Defenses have been setup and people barracaded inside, and life goes on for them. Some rich people can live in a skyscraper called Fiddler's Green, and poor people live on the skirt of the city within the blockage. Every once in a while some hired mercenaries went out in an armoured and armed vehicle to get supplies from abandoned supermarkets or other places. Our main characters are two of those mercanaries, on a final night out but for different reasons. Denbo (Simon Baker) wants to get out of the city, and Cholo (John Leguizamo) wants to have his own apartment in the Green, but they will both be pissed for not having their wishes come true.

The zombies are obsessed of watching fireworks. The smart zombie, like the audience, has no idea why.

Problem: what are these guys working for? Money. In a world that is full of zombies, and we havent seen them breeds any poultry or grow anything, food supply is gonna run out fast, and we have been told that they stayed like this for years. I am pretty sure food and water supply is in shortage. So what can they do with money? Buy supplies. Are they dumbs? They grabs supplies out in the jungle of zombies just to get money for some supplies that they would already have if not sold them out? Besides, money dont mean jack-shit without a operating issueing bank, and I dont think the banks are open under zombie days.

What have these stupid rich assholes contributed to the situation? Aint that obvious protecting them for money is stupid?

That being said, why is the people hired for money to protect the rich, that doesnt do anything but shopping. The residents in the Green, whom I imagine would be accountants, lawyers, or investment bankers, do nothing but shopping and having high teas. What do we need them for since clearly the stock market and court has been shutdown, and we do not even have an account.

Lastly, with that much of firepower, they could easily end the whole thing by killing all the zombies. You can just run it over with the armoured automobile.

Having an argument with the door wide open. Brilliant. Guess what happen next.

I understand it sort of address the problem of the contrast between rich and poor, but this scenario seems far-out for me. I imagine it more like in Mad Max 2 (1981), in which people trade supplies for supplies, and there is no rich man that can just sit down and enjoy art.

Now with that out of the way, we look at how Romero dealing with the zombie scenario again. In Land of the Dead we goes back to the Romero zombies, which are slow-moving, but like in Day of the Dead (1985), they can learn. A more intelligent zombie seems to learn how to use tool, shot a gun, and walk underwater. He leads other zombies to breach the perimeter of the city, and storm Fiddler's Green. I have already talked about how I do not like the learning idea, and while in this one they do not seems like retarded, it is closer to a point that we can reason with them. So are they even mindless zombies anymore...?

Tom Savini makes a cameo in this and it does kinda awesome to kinda suggest this is the same character from Dawn of the Dead.

The plot and characters are pretty standard. Money arguments and interest conflicts cause troubles, and Cholo wants to kill the richest by threatening them he would storm the place for ransom, while the good guy Denbo has to stop him for the innocient riches, pretty much like in many other movies such as The Rock (1996). We can have the story goes in other post-apocalyptic situations, like nuclear war, tsunami, epidemic, you name the rest. Zombie has nothing really to do with it.

Overall, I would not rate it good. Although comparing this to other movies at the time, it does take a bold step to make something different, but doesnt really work for me. On the entertaining level I would rate it more or less the same as the Dawn of the Dead remake (2004) gives me, and aint that a shame. George A. Romero would follow this with Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2009), and things got worse. Maybe in all walks of life, we got it at some point and lost it.