Franchises: Romero's Dead Series. Land of the Dead (2005)

Twenty years after he made Day of the Dead, and after having not made a movie since the early 90's up until 2000 with Bruiser, George Romero made his long-awaited return to the zombie subgenre with a new film. From what I can gather, fans were nothing less than thrilled about the prospect of a new Romero Dead movie, which is understandable, and the renewed popularity of zombie movies at the time, with films like 28 Days Later (although I personally don't consider that to be a zombie film but that's a discussion for another day) and the remake of Dawn of the Dead, didn't hurt either. And from what I can gather, the film did quite well, making over $46 million on a budget that was somewhere between $15 and $20 million, and it got generally good reviews from critics as well. I only vaguely heard about the film's release in the summer of 2005 and didn't become really interested in seeing it until I saw an advertisement for its DVD release that fall. Once I saw those brief clips from it, I decided that this was a flick I wanted to check out, especially since I was now a fan of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. I received the DVD as a Christmas present from my late aunt and popped it in the day after I watched Day of the Dead for the first time (fitting, considering how the documentary on that edition ends with Romero talking about the possibility of a fourth movie). My reactions to both were fairly "meh" but, while I've grown to really enjoy Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead has remained one that I've always felt was just okay. For me, it proved that, by this point in his life, Romero had lost some of his spark and now seemed more interested in the political messages he was trying to invoke rather than making a movie that, while having some welcome depth to it, was, first and foremost, entertaining. While I still don't out-and-out hate this film, it's not one that I had much of an inclination to go back to every now and then and, in fact, I no longer have that DVD I once did.

What's interesting is, after Day of the Dead, George Romero tried his hand at making movies with studios, filming Monkey Shines (which I really like) and The Dark Half (which I think is a fair film) for Orion Pictures, but the experiences on both weren't great due to studio meddling and Orion's money problems. After The Dark Half, was filmed from 1990 to 1991 but not released until 1993 due to Orion's bankruptcy, Romero was inactive for the rest of the decade, save for directing a commercial for, fittingly, Resident Evil 2, and while there were talks of him possibly directing the Resident Evil movie (I've never seen the movie that was eventually made but, given Paul W.S. Anderson's track record, I'm sure Romero could have done much better), he remained inactive until 2000 when he released the very low budget, independent movie, Bruiser (really don't care for that film). Land of the Dead would prove to be the one movie by him that was backed by a truly major studio, namely Universal, and it would also prove to be the biggest budget he'd ever work with. However, while Romero has said that he was able to do everything he wanted to with the film and was allowed to shoot it in Toronto, where he's lived since before the millennium, he made it clear even on the special features of the DVD that he wasn't a "Hollywood guy," that he didn't go in for that "bullshit," which makes me wonder if something else happened behind the scenes that he didn't mention. Or it's also possible that he's simply not comfortable working with so much money and doesn't care for the studio system (I think he may hate it more than John Carpenter, is that's possible). Whatever the case, I don't think it's likely we'll ever see another major studio film with his name on it.

Despite my feelings that the movie is just okay, I also think that there are genuinely good things about it. First off, the makeup effects by Greg Nicotero and company are top-notch all-around. The zombies, which the characters here refer to as "stenches," look fantastic and they sometimes combine realistic-looking animatronics with great makeups (see if you can tell which is which, because it's not that easy). The gore effects are also excellent and, like Day of the Dead, a highlight of this film is when the zombies descend on the fortified city and go on a brutal killing spree. You get the usual, bloody flesh-ripping and biting that you want and it is an exciting sequence (sadly, it's one of the only exciting sequences in the film, as I'll get to). Another highlight is a small recreation of the basement scene in Dawn where two characters come across zombies chewing on human remains, which is actually much creepier because of how it's completely dark and you're only getting gruesome glimpses as a result of the flashlight one character has.

Another aspect of the movie that's sort of good is the music score by Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek. While it's definitely not the most memorable score, it does have some nice pieces, such as an interesting little theme that plays throughout the film and has a sound like, "Duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh," on a piano. The music that plays during the zombie rampage sequence and over the majority of the ending credits is also memorable for just how badass and threatening it sounds.

Unfortunately, those are some of the few truly good things I can say for the movie because, for the most part, it's either preachy, forgettable, or just plain awful, which is a shame because the story had potential to be interesting. By this point, the world is so overrun with zombies that a large part of humanity has now  taken up residence in the fortified city of Pittsburgh, which is protected by the zombies by rivers on either side and an electrified fence. (As I said in my earlier review, this doesn't fit with the scenario in Day of the Dead, where humanity was apparently wiped out except for a few pockets of people but, now that I think about it, it's not far-fetched to believe the city could have existed all this time, especially since the characters in Day were saddled with faulty radio equipment that made it nigh impossible to contact anyone nearby.) However, life in the city isn't so good, as the rich and powerful have taken control and live in a nice, luxurious high-rise called Fiddler's Green, leaving everyone else to languish in the slums around it. One of those working for the wealthy, Cholo, gets tired of risking his life by going out and killing zombies, as well as doing other dirty work for them, and getting nothing in return. He retaliates by hijacking Dead Reckoning, a massive, fortified armored vehicle used to safely venture in the zombie-infested areas outside the city and threatens to use it to destroy Fiddler's Green unless his demands are met. Kaufman, the true ruler of the city, responds by hiring Riley, Dead Reckoning's designer and former commander, and his friends to stop Cholo, with the help of a small group of people he sends with them. Meanwhile, the zombies are becoming more intelligent, thanks to the leadership of one in particular, and eventually figure out how to get over to the city. Like I said, it could make for a good movie; however, I'll now explain why this doesn't work as well as it should in my opinion.

If any political messages were going to be prevalent in this film, they were inevitably going to be about the war on terror. Romero has said that the way the people living in the city treat the zombies is the same way the American people treat terrorism: they know the problem exists but act like it doesn't until it eventually comes and, as it literally does in this film, bites them in the ass. I will say that part is handled well enough. Also, according to some critics, the tactic the characters use to distract the zombies with fireworks is similar to those used during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which I didn't even know until I read about it, mainly because I try to stay away from anything to do with politics and government, but I did find it interesting and a nice way to slip in some undertones. But, where I think the movie gets overly heavy-handed with its statements is in the metaphor for the widening gap between the rich and poor. For my money, it spends a little too much time trying to hammer that message home, with so many sequences in the slums of the city and numerous lines of dialogue talking about it in the scenes with Cholo and Kaufman (who I used to think was a George W. Bush stand-in but, since I'm not entirely sure, I'm not going to say any more about it so as not to open that can of worms). Speaking of his Kaufman, his line about the zombies having "no right" felt very forced and pretentious. It was like, "Okay, George, we get it." And finally, going back to the terrorism angle, when Cholo steals Dead Reckoning, he parks it on a hilltop overlooking the city and aims the weapons at the biggest tower in the city. Granted, he never gets a chance to destroy it but I don't think I have to say any more about it's meant to be a call-back to. Again, a little heavy-handed.

Now, I wouldn't have minded all these political overtones, however heavy-handed they may be, if the film was one thing: entertaining. The original trilogy may have had a lot that it was trying but they managed to lay them within movies that were, most importantly of all, fun and thrilling to watch at the same time. This film, however, didn't entertain me, which is all I ask for from a movie in the first place and the only thing I really care about, honestly. It was really dull most of the time, with almost no zombie action until near the end, and when it it wasn't being preachy, it was just forgettable. The biggest reason for that is the cast: none of these people are anywhere close to the level of the casts from the previous films. Simon Baker, who plays the lead character of Riley, gives what has to be one of the most uninteresting, bland performances ever. I get that the idea is that he's burned out on everything and just wants to get away but that doesn't change the fact that he's a boring lead with no charisma, doesn't feel like a leader or a badass in any way, and is a huge letdown following the leads we've had in the past movies. Asia Argento, daughter of Dario Argento, plays a slutty character named Slack who also is not interesting in any way, even when they try to make her someone you should care about by revealing that she tried to help organize rebellion against the rich. John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper's presences were meant to show that Romero now had the power to get big actors like them but, honestly, how many people were expected to be interested in them by 2005? I've got nothing against either of them but it's laughable that they were intended to be big draws. Leguizamo tries to be badass and he does have some kind of charisma but he mainly comes off as a cliche and Hopper, while he does his best, has nothing to do other than act as a representation of one of Romero's themes. The only character I kind of liked was Robert Joy as Charlie, Riley's burned and kind of simple friend/bodyguard (originally, I thought he was maybe halfway between human and zombie but, apparently, that's not the case). I felt he was interesting, with his mannerisms and how much of a sure-shot he was by licking the barrel of his gun, as well as his devotion to Riley. I also liked how he called the fireworks "sky-flowers," and, at the end when the zombies are killing a big group of people and weren't distracted by the fireworks they shot off earlier, he solemnly says, "Sky-flowers don't work no more." I thought he was something of a cool character but they never did much with him when all is said and done.

As good as the zombies look, there aren't that many that stand out as in the previous films. The most memorable one is Eugene Clark's Big Daddy, who's mostly just a big brute who roars a lot but he does have some notable moments, like when he shows emotion towards other zombies who've been injured, such as the one whose head is shot off right in his hand, and his moments of intelligence when he shows the others how to reach the city and makes use of a propane tank to kill both Kaufman and a zombified Cholo at the end. I used to wonder why the zombies didn't get smarter after Bub, who was far more intelligent than Big Daddy and would have probably made a more effective leader for them but, given how he was taught to be civil, only committed violence out of revenge for Dr. Logan's death, and didn't join the other zombies in eating those he did kill, I guess it makes sense that he wouldn't have gone on to help the zombies devour other people. It was also probably best for the story that the zombies have a leader who learned on his own rather than having been taught. Other than Big Daddy, there aren't many other zombies who stand out, except for maybe a cheerleader one you see briefly at one point and the ones in the barroom photo booth, who are only noteworthy because they're played by an unrecognizable Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. One exception, though, is Blades, the biker character played by Tom Savini in Dawn of the Dead, who makes a brief appearance as a zombie during the climactic rampage and, while he's obviously put there just to make the fans squeal with delight, as well as so Romero can give his old friend some kind of involvement with the film, it's a nice surprise nevertheless.

Lastly, as I mentioned earlier, the budget, while not exactly gigantic, was definitely the biggest one Romero ever had to work with and it allowed him to do some things he'd never been able to before, like have a really big scope for the film, which actually enabled him to use some of the concepts from Day of the Dead he was originally forced to abandon, and create the massive, cool-looking Dead Reckoning vehicle. Unfortunately, the budget proved to not mean a thing in other areas, the most notable of which was the use of some CGI effects. By this point, there had been movies with $100 million budgets that had really bad CGI, so there was no hope for it in a movie this small, and while it's thankfully used sparingly, the results, sure enough, make the film feel much cheaper than it really is. The most jarring effect is a zombie whose head is hanging by its spinal cord behind its back and it flips it around in order to bite someone. It is laughably bad, to say the least, and doesn't do anything to help the film's credibility. The film also looks rather cheap to me, like a big budget TV movie instead of something you'd see in theaters. I don't know what it is about Canada, if it's the film stocks up there or what, but a lot of movies that were filmed there often have that kind of generic, bland to them. Some shots look cool, with a dark blue tint to them that I like, but for the most part, if it weren't for the gore and adult content, I'd think I was watching that was made for television.

The positive reviews that Land of the Dead got from many mainstream critics mostly focused on the film's political overtones, a fact that makes me think I'm possibly not cut out to be a professional critic. As I said, I just want to be entertained and don't care about political or social commentary, and while I can appreciate it if it's there, the film itself has to be a fun or interesting watch as well and this wasn't that for me. Again, I don't think it's absolutely horrible and feel that there are good notes to it, like the makeup, gore, and animatronic effects, the zombie carnage at the end, some bits of the music, parts of the political statements that are well-done, and advantages from the big budget, but it's still a letdown at the end of the day. The story isn't as interesting as it should be, the characters are almost completely forgettable, the film has a cheap look to it, the CGI effects are horrendous, and, ultimately, not much happens until the third act, as the film is so focused on its political statements. Its biggest failure to me is that, instead of being downright terrible, it's just forgettable, which is often even worse.