George A. Romero's new horror flick "Land of the Dead" is truly embarrassing to everyone involved. Sure, zombie movies aren't usually cinematic masterpieces. But due to cheesy special effects, god-awful acting and a nonsensical plot, "Land of the Dead" hits a new low.
We should expect more from Romero, who helped establish the zombie-horror genre with the 1968 classic "Night of the Living Dead.” This director has had a long time to learn what not to do, but apparently not long enough. Romero attempts to scare the audience with some good old-fashioned zombie action, but merely provides some unintentional laughs instead.
The best part of the whole movie is the intro, which sets the scene with fragments of news broadcasts. Zombies have taken over the world, leaving still-living humans isolated in a fortified city ruled by Paul Kaufman (Dennis Hopper, "Americano"), a decidedly lame bad guy. Special forces teams use a giant armored truck called "Dead Reckoning" (yes, the truck has its own name) to raid the zombie-infested small towns outside for supplies. When special-forces badass Cholo (John Leguziamo, "Assault on Precinct 13"), who is secretly working as an assassin for Kaufman, is refused admittance into Kaufman's upper-class enclave Fiddler's Green, he goes renegade and steals "Dead Reckoning."
Cholo wants $5 million from Kaufman, or he'll shell the city — yes, a truck is holding an entire city hostage. We don't really know what Cholo would do with the money now that he's cut off from the city, but that's not important. Kaufman doesn't want to give up the money and sends out the recently retired Riley (Simon Baker, "The Ring Two"), the former head of the special-forces team, for one of the lamest showdowns in movie history.
Riley has a feeling that the zombies are smarter than they look, which he lets us known through dialogue frequently set to ominous music. His suspicions are based on an initial scene where some zombies are having a wedding. This involves several gussied-up zombies standing around while zombie brass band members slowly bang their instruments against things. Why zombies would want to get married is unclear, but it's obviously a step up from their usual routine of stumbling around town.
We can see that a zombie known as "Big Daddy" is especially smart since he bellows mournfully as his fellow zombies are mowed down by machine guns. Through a similar series of bellows, he assembles an army of zombies he then leads on a march against the city. Big Daddy figures out how to use firearms and how to cross rivers by walking across the bottom (apparently zombies don't need to breathe?), thus bypassing the city's main defenses and prompting Riley to come to the rescue.
It's hard to believe that "Land of the Dead" is a feature film. For starters, the acting is bad almost all the way around. Baker tries to play the cool, thoughtful, no-nonsense hero, mainly by speaking in terse sentences, but comes off as extremely boring. Leguziamo's tough-guy Cholo is passable, though not up to his usual standards. But the real disappointment is Dennis Hopper, who has acted alongside silver-screen legends like James Dean. In his role as Kaufman, he fails to inspire the sense of power or fear that should accompany the man who rules a city besieged by zombies.
The special effects are laughable at best. Even for a movie with a relatively small $16 million budget, "Land of the Dead" was extremely weak in the effects department. Several of the explosions were just wussy, and the gore was second-rate. There's plenty of opportunities for some class-A blood and guts, such as when Big Daddy angrily crushes a decapitated zombie head like a melon, but Romero and company fail to capitalize. The blood is a shade too red and gratuitously overdone, such as when a zombie chews off the belly-button ring of his victim.
Of course, cheesy gore comes with the territory, but it's just pointless considering the total lack of scariness. The one thing the movie has going for it, a post-apocalyptic setting in the spirit of "Mad Max," is ruined by the director's failure to use it for suspense. For a movie that features folks getting jumped by zombies in all sorts of nighttime settings, "Land of the Dead" is not that scary, to the point of being comical.
Perhaps the worst part is that "Land of the Dead" desperately wants to be taken seriously. Romero tries to make us sympathize with the zombies, which is probably the most brainless move a director of a zombie film could make. These attempts are excruciatingly fumbled, such as when poignant music plays in the background while "Dead Reckoning" blows up a crowd of zombies. At the end of the movie, Riley even gazes wistfully at some departing zombies and says, "They're looking for a place to go — just like us." OK, except when they get there, they're going to want some human flesh to eat.
The only reason to recommend "Land of the Dead" is for its unintentional humor value — but even that's not worth getting the new DVD. If you do decide to rent it, you can amuse yourself by counting the many goofs in the movie, such as disappearing wounds and a visible boom microphone. For anyone who wants a zombie movie that's actually good, go out and rent "28 Days Later."
Grade: D
