George A. Romero should be a hero to any fan of the horror film genre. He gave us "Night of the Living Dead," and who doesn't love flesh eating zombies? "Land of the Dead" is the fourth movie of this series ("Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead" take up the middle), and it seems as if the zombies were able to drive the people out and started their own civilization, which is pretty cool for a bunch of dead people. I look at these movies as all being from the same universe, a universe in which the living live in fear of the dead, and the dead are envious of the living, although they don't realize it.
The zombies try to act like the humans they once were, and seem to be much smarter than previous movies, as wisdom does grow with age. They were content with their own world,b ut the living attack them so that they can get supplies (food, medicine, etc.). This probably wouldn't be a big problem if they only killed the zombies who tried to attack them, but some of them kill and taunt the zombies for fun. This pisses off the smartest zombie, Big Daddy (Eugene Clark), who leads the rest of them on a crusade to the city.
Unfortunately, that is ust the subplot. The main plot comes about when Cholo (John Leguizamo) steals Dead Reckoning (a tank used to navigate through the zombies on the humans supply hunt) after Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), the leader of this section of the living who has his fingers in everything, wouldn't let him move into the priveledged area, Fiddler's Green. Cholo demands Kaufman give him five million dollars or else he will blow up the town, so Kaufman requests the services of Riley (Simon Baker) to get back the tank that he designed. Riley takes on the job with the intention of taking the tank to Canada to live where he doesn't need to fear the zombies, or the living.
There are some really guresome parts (a zombie eating a girl by her navel ring being one of them), some funny parts, and some pretty damn scary parts. This is a decent movie, but nothing great; exactly what a horror movie (especially involving zombies) should be.
Written by: RF