George A. Romeroās Land Of The Dead
One would think that the Godfather of the Zombie Subgenre himself would have been able to look around and see the hordes of little-to-no-talent amateur filmmakers who have devoted countless hours to ripping off his work and seen that it was probably better to let the subgenre die off eventually while focusing on fresh new material. Thus was sadly not the case with this 2005 release (the fourth in the series) that takes the very subtle social commentary of the original trilogy and proceeds to beat us over the head with it this time, especially by utilizing the very oblique class warfare argument that has resulted in utter failure for our current President. This time the zombies continue to walk the Earth, but a good portion of the surviving humans have confined themselves to āFiddlerās Greenā, a large industrial city surrounded by soldiers and electrical fences, where the basic tenets of society have restricted the most luxurious lifestyle to the rich and affluent (even though the question of why a monetary system would still be in place after a zombie apocalypse is rather perplexing) while the rest of the underclass are relegated to living on the streets (including one guy whose overbearing Irish accent places him strictly among the lower ranks), bartering and scrounging about while nonetheless being perfectly safe thanks to the security measures put in by the rich people. Meanwhile, teams of rowdy mercenaries prowl the surrounding small towns, killing zombies and gathering supplies to bring back to the city. Alas, one of these scavenger hunts really pisses off a particular pack of zombies (led by an undead black guy who has figured out how to aim and fire a gun), and they march towards the city with renewed purpose in order to take their revenge. Now while some might argue that the very notion of zombies doing such things make them more āevolvedā, it doesnāt change the fact that they have been always running on basic motor skills that barely allow them to walk, and thus would and could never have grasped such concepts as rage and revenge. Nonetheless, it helps put across Romeroās ideas very well (at the expense of logic), so that the zombies can ultimately storm the gates and feast on rich, white (Republican?) WASPs in an orgy of vengeance and social justice. The cast is also a mixed bag, as reflected by the two male leads: Simon (The Mentalist) Baker plays the tough guy hero in what is such an inept piece of casting that his testosterone anger-filled rages come off hilariously as effeminate little hissy fits, and considering some of the aspects of the story, he almost appears to be an unnecessary character to boot, while John Leguizamo begrudgingly delivers the best performance of the film, as the mercenary who longs to live in the luxury tower but when turned away due to racism, decides to hijack the high-tech combat RV they normally use and lay waste to the place instead. We also get Asia Argento looking a little weather beaten as the tough chick who joins Baker on his mission to stop Leguizamo, Robert Joy as the burned and deformed sidekick of Bakerās whose constant self-depreciating humor (āLook at meā¦ā) becomes annoying within the first twenty minutes of the film, and saddest of all is Dennis Hopper phoning it in as the diabolical rich guy in the tower trying to keep his little empire all together, even as the ONLY reasons that Hopper is truly evil amounts to 1) Heās wealthy and 2) Heās a racist who wonāt allow his loyal soldier Leguizamo to take up residence in the Ivory Tower alongside his fellow (white) well-to-dos. While nobody will ever dispute Hopperās legendary status, the fact remains that there is NOTHING he can do with this character, whose portrayal remains erratic throughout the film because even Romero canāt seem to get a grasp on this type of stereotype. Regardless, the walking dead continue their march on the city, even going underwater to make it across despite the fact their bodies would become so weighed down with water that thereās no way they would actually make it, while every military type character is so off their game that they stupidly allow the zombies to sneak up on them CONSTANTLY just to get a (fatal) bite or maybe a whole meal. I will admit that some of the gore is as impressive as always (even with the inclusion of the dreadfully fake CGI) and it was nice to see legendary midget actor Phil Fondacaro as the proprietor of a sleazy nightclub where zombies (including Simon Pegg of Shaun Of The Dead) are kept on chains so as to be mocked and humiliated, and of course the highlight of the film: the ten second cameo of Tom Savini reprising the role of his (now-zombified) character from the original Dawn Of The Dead. Regardless, these type of pleasures which were a staple of the original trilogy are few and far between, and what we get instead is a naĆÆve, badly done social commentary with a truly atrocious excuse for an action hero in the lead roleā¦
5/10