Land of the Dead

I decided to watch this movie after being so thoroughly enthralled by AMC’s The Walking Dead, and only now do I realize that the director, George A. Romero, is the same guy who directed that abomination of Diary of the Dead.  I wish I had realized that earlier, it would have spared me another disappointment.

Synopsis: people fight for their survival while the world is overrun by hordes of undead determined to feed on them.  A few pockets of '”safe havens” remain, where the rich live completely shielded from the new reality.  A group of fighters moves among the two worlds, each with their own agendas, but a new threat lurks among the undead.

If that synopsis sounds vaguely interesting, don’t be fooled.  The main idea behind this chapter of Romero’s zombie saga is that one zombie suddenly becomes self-aware and stops being simply a moving corpse with no ability to think.  That, in and of itself, is a total absurdity.  By definition, a zombie is a corpse whose limbic system somehow keeps working and forces the body to satisfy its most basic instinct, that of feeding itself.  That’s it.  A zombie’s brain doesn’t have the ability to think because the brain is dead.  That’s why the zombie kills indiscriminately and feels no compassion towards former friends or family members.

Looking at Romero’s page on IMDb, I see that his directorial debut, 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, is what put him on the map.  He followed that ten years later with Day of the Dead, and more recently with the two stink bombs I’ve watched and a final one, 2009’s Survival of the Dead, which supposedly concludes his pentalogy on the undead.  I guess I’ll have to go back and watch the first chapter, because I really don’t understand how anyone could be held to such esteem after making such unexciting turds.

Aside from the central plot point turning out to be unsustainably ridiculous, the whole script is quite weak and the acting non-existent.  Simon Baker and John Leguizamo play the main characters, but their talents are wasted and if you never saw them in anything else you’d think they’re horrific actors (and Leguizamo at least surely is not).  Even the great Dennis Hopper phones it in as the baddy du jour.

The Bottom Line: while chapter 3 of Romero’s zombie saga isn’t as lame and risible as the following one, I’d still recommend skipping it and opting to watch the magnificently well made The Walking Dead instead.  I honestly cannot think of one single thing in this stinker that I really liked.  Except maybe that it’s over.

Grade: 3