Review of Land of the Dead (2005) by Adam H — 30 Apr 2010

Like its venerated predecessors, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, Land stars a cast of b-level (not b-grade) stars and relative unknowns in the lead roles, including Simon Baker, Asia Argento, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper, which sort of celebrates the series' genre roots without aspiring to too much artistic pretense.

But then again, there's not a hair out of place on this film's deliciously rotten head; the story, the directing, the set design are all solidly professional, but retain just enough genre glee to engage fans of the former installments and create all new ones at the same time.

The ideas fly as fast and furious as the body parts, but brilliantly Romero never stoops to obvious, dialogue-driven harangues, instead opting to submerge his conceit- that is, a divided society where zombies reflect our own political complacency ? in the forgotten stuff of subtext.

The gore is amped up appropriately from earlier films, and provides a literal cross-section of destruction and dismemberments; some of them exist for sheer thrill value, but Romero, unlike many of his style-stealing disciples, knows that substantive storytelling is the key to evoking true dread, not a coroner's checklist of body parts.

Overall, Land of the Dead is not exactly the zombie movie everyone perhaps has been expecting from Romero; really, it's the one they were all hoping for. The director proves himself yet again to be a master of the genre in ways that even contemporaries like Wes Craven and John Carpenter don't understand, which is to continue making solidly crafted movies, update your style without acquiescing to current convention, and make movies that will last longer than the life span of a disembowled zombie.

Ultimately, he knows that getting old doesn't have to be a bad thing; after all, making good movies and earning chances to make more is the key to keeping young in Hollywood.