Land of the Dead (2005)

Touches You

Simply Perfect

Nice effects though.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

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.

We begin the movie seeing zombies milling around aimlessly, suggesting that they have spent way too much time unable to do what they mostly love to do, which is feed. Apparently, the inactivity was so endless, the zombies began to retake their former lives and carry out certain aspects of it. Meanwhile, civilization is not completely lost. There is a haven that is called "Fiddler's Green" which is owned and operated by a business mogul named Kaufman, who has been able to continue his trade, even in the face of humanity's total annihilation and provides divided shelter to anyone that is left alive. He has assembled an army of mercenaries, military men and even police officers to ensure some type of order in his empire, and these same people are the ones trusted with the task of scouring for whatever resources they can find deep within enemy lines. Enter our leading men; Riley, Cholo and Charlie. Riley and Charlie representing the good nature that is still preserved in man and Cholo continuing the time honored tradition of greed and mistrust. Longer story short, Kaufman summons the fury of Cholo by treating him like a total peon, after Cholo had the notion that he would be able to join Fiddler's Green's finest living arrangements and become part of the respected elite but Kaufman declines his solicitation, proving that elitism and social class distinction is still alive and well. Cholo seeks comeuppance a different way, by stealing the Green's most powerful vehicle "Dead Reckoning" which is designed to repel a strong zombie attack and holds it for ransom, with the intention of cheating Kaufman out of both his money and car, just like Kaufman cheated Cholo out of a better life. Riley is summoned to retrieve both Cholo and Dead Reckoning by Kaufman, considering Riley designed Dead Reckoning and is closer to Cholo than anyone left in the Green. Riley takes Charlie and a lady who was rescued by both from being eaten by zombies and they go pursue Cholo. Kaufman has sent 3 soldiers with Riley, who are instructed to take Dead Reckoning back, but also dispose of Riley because like Cholo, he also reflects dissent in Kaufman's utopia. Riley succeeds in taking back Dead Reckoning, leaving Cholo to fend for himself and choose his own path, as he no longer wishes to be part of any team. All throughout this, the zombies had actually managed to kill off surrounding patrols and cross a river in order to get to Fiddler's, proving that they have indeed evolved and develop limited but effective cognitive skills. Fiddler's Green becomes under siege and Kaufman becomes a casualty, thanks to Cholo himself and Riley and his team finish off the remaining threat, and proceed to find less secluded but secure locations in Canada.The movie has strong points and goes a different direction by allowing zombies to actually communicate and rationalize. Personally, I loved it. Here are the only 2 points I didn't like about this film, though: The ending. The movie was awesome in its darker and hopeless tone, it gave you a feeling of actual doom. Even though that the zombies have become more aware, they are still relatively evil and naturally inclined to eliminate whatever is left human. So why let a rather large population of them roam around when you're looking for a safer place? The movies themselves have said it: As long as we're alive, they will never run out of food. As long as they're around, there ARE NO safer places. They are not animals. Animals have the capacity to show emotion, compassion and even love. Zombies, no matter how progressed they are, are by all means unable to develop these traits. Their survival instincts may improve but ultimately their purpose should not change as their bodies have wasted away whatever humanity they had left. Pretty questionable move on Romero in the end, but since the movie barely shows any real heart, Im guessing this was done to make up for that. The second point I disagreed with was the dialogue. In Night, Dawn and Day, it seemed to tie the movie together, to have characters show a sense of rationality or reasoning as to why this has happened, thus making us sympathize with them in their situation. Here in Land, it's nowhere to be found. The Riley character was pretty weak and it made you wonder how Bub, who could not speak as he was a zombie in Day, made you bawl your eyes out in his performance, and yet Simon Baker who has a leading role could not. Asia Argento is in this movie but her character is really not that important to the story. I will end this by saying that I love the movie. For what it is, it is pretty good, I mean it is still better than any zombie stuff made around the time it came out, most notably Resident Evil, which degenerated after the 2nd installment and definitely way better than Diary of the Dead, which came after it but it relied on the overused hand-held horror technique. Survival of the Dead was just a horror spoof of a horror classic. One thing this movie continues to emphasize: The ego and pride of man continue to be his worst enemy. You know humanity is in trouble when after 40 years of horror, the zombies have managed to come together for a purpose and end up overtaking the seemingly smarter humans. Nice one, Mr. Romero.

This is one of the scariest movie from the last decade. It is the fourth part to the living dead series. It is better then the first living dead movie. Night of the living dead (1968). It also better then the third living dead series Day of the Dead (1985). This is a lot better then Dawn of the Dead (2004). That is a remake of the second living dead movie and it just crap. Dawn of the Dead (1978) is better then this movie. So is Night of the living dead (1990). Still this movie has great acting. It also has a great story line. It also has great special effects. If it does not scary you know movie will. 6.2 is just underrating this great film.

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.