Thursday, June 16, 2005
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Although this isn't an official review- and you can post your own reviews under our amazing Land of the Dead film page- we still thought we'd stick this review up for you guys to check out. It is George Romero's long-awaited fourth zombie flick, so it deserves all the attention in the world! SO inside you'll find our first reader review for Universal's Land, which hits theaters June 24th. Check back here soon for our official review. Read on for the fan review...
The following opinions don't reflect those of B-D.com.
Kylie writes in:
Ok, so I just got back from an advance screening of LAND OF THE DEAD. I have to say that my reaction is mixed, but I definitely would say "go see it!"
SPOILERS---- BEWARE -------- SPOILERS!!!
The opening credits are really cool. They are in black and white and give a very uneasy sense of dread. Kinda reminded me of something David Lynch would do. Very Eraserhead style!
There are many characters and things going on all at once, so at times it's hard to sometimes keep up, but the plot is pretty simple, so it's not too hard to fill in the blanks. Basically the story focuses more on the class struggle between the poor and the rich and it's more of a fight between who is going to get out of the city alive and start over somewhere else fresh -- even though there really is no place else to go.
There are a lot of Pros and Cons in the movie and here are my thoughts:
PROS: Good jump-out scares! Good nasty & scary zombie bites! Good musical score -- luckily NO rock music like in the trailer! Though there IS a Latin Rap song during a circus type "club" scene. Good open ending for a sequel.
CONS: The big black zombie is way TOO human-like and made me roll my eyes a lot. It's really hard to be scared of him since he looks too much like a guy wearing rubbery zombie make-up. Zombies are scary cuz they are unpredictable. The more "human" they become, the more they seem like "NIGHT OF THE COMET" type zombies. In fact, in this movie it was a combination of slow zombies from Night & Dawn -- crossed with 1/2 zombies from Night of the Comet -- or like the paramedic zombies from Return of the Living Dead -- Which to me was "ok" -- but I like my zombies to be slow, freaky and confused like in Night of the Living Dead.
Some scenes were boring -- mainly some of the scenes of Dennis Hopper showing off his power and money. I wanted to see more zombie attacks and un-escapable situations. Sometimes it felt like I was watching a futuristic Italian "after the apocalypse" type movie from 1985. Where the good guy has to do a deed for the bad guy and then decides to be the hero and double cross the bad guy and save his people.
What makes the zombie movies scary is the fact that you have normal people trying to escape and survive all the terror and chaos outside. This movie didn't have that feeling to it. It was more militant and SWAT team style which seems to be more alienating. And at times, it seemed tame -- like a SciFi Channel original.
I did like LOTD and would say YES it's good for what it is, but I guess I was expecting much more.
There were a few other "roll your eyes" moments: 2 lesbian girls appear out of nowhere, making out, and then suddenly they get grabbed by zombie hands busting thru the wall (this was stupid-funny!).
The Skateboarder guy chillin' before getting eaten seemed like filler.
Oh and when someone gets their belly button ring ripped off by a zombie (this was cheesy!).
The acting was pretty good -- Simon Baker, John Lequizamo & Asia Argento all did good (though the Asia role seemed like it could of been meatier -- she mainly just throws punchlines and stands around with her big gun. Reminded me of Michelle Rodriquez in Resident Evil.
I hope the movie is a success and I hope there is another in the series or at least some sort of sequel. I just hope if there is, it gets back to the simple formula = average people caught in a terrifying situation!
3 out of 5 stars!
Source: Kylie
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