Land: The verdict

This has taken me so long to write. I thought that seeing George A. Romero's Land of the Dead twice would make writing something about it easier, but I'm not convinced that it has. I thought for a little while that I might just wait until I've got my hands on the dvd and watch it a third time before finishing this post, but I need to get it done. Land of the Dead centres on Riley (Simon Baker), a good man who's job it is to lead a team of scavengers out into deserted cities to find supplies for his employer, Kaufman. Kaufman lives in Fiddlers Green, a plush tower block inhabited only by society's elite. Those deemed not worthy of The Green live in squalor in the surrounding city. On his last night out, Riley's team attract the attention of "Big Daddy". Smarter than your average zombie, Big Daddy follows the departing convoy towards Fiddlers Green, his zombie chums in tow. Land of the Dead isn't as effective as Romero's previous three zombie outings, in any way. That doesn't make it a bad film though. The music is reminiscent of Day in places, and features an effective, haunting leit-motif to evoke a sense of sympathy for the zombie horde. Speaking of which, the scores of seemingly more intelligent zombies are handled with Romero's usual ease; they're a logical evolution of Bub, and as such are nothing that's not been hinted at before. Somehow, this feels more natural thanks to Romero's influence; his zombies genuinely do move with a style and purpose which is distinctly Romero. Who else could have dreamed up the "sky flowers", fireworks designed to distract the zombies while the scavengers go about their business. In much the same way as the zombies have evolved naturally, the humans have gone the same way – the scavengers are a more organised version of the raiders from Dawn's final scenes. There's some nice gore effects in Land, although its not as strong as Day, or Dawn for that matter. I suspect there may be more in the "Directors Cut" dvd – time will tell. Fundamentally, this is a zombie action/adventure movie; it works (despite having a slightly "goofy" plot) but feels somehow less "real" than it's predecessors. It's not as satirical or involving as Dawn, not as claustrophobic or creepy as Night, and nowhere near as horrific as Day. It has a distilled, comic book feel that's not necessarily a bad thing, but left this hardcore zombie aficionado wanting a little more. There's no attempt to work out where "they" came from (although the credit sequence provides a nice recap), or how to cure "them". The zombies are just accepted, and as a result this feels entirely more comfortable than the other films. There's never any tangible sense of danger or dread, and do we actually care about any of the characters? Perhaps the most sympathetic character in the film is a zombie! But is all this the point? I suspect it is, but it's handled in slightly too heavy handed a fashion for my liking. In summary, this isn't as good as the first three, but it's not a bad film. I just don't think it quite works the way Romero wanted, for whatever reason.