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DokBrowne [ 7.0 ]
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Romero has always had a messy style, both visually and story-wise. He doesn't hire name actors, he seems to thrive in the filth of the world, and his movies seem more like cleverly improvised jumbles of ideas than carefully planned-out stories, and even if I'm totally wrong characterizing him that way, that's certainly how his 4th zombie opus felt. Based on its structure and premise, it would seem to be an opus, indeed, but the movie zips along using moderately engaging but ultimately replaceable stock characters and situations, and is over before you've really had time to settle in, it seems. Nothing really pricks your emotions in any direction; the story lacks any sense of tragedy, which I guess it doesn't always need, but still, it occurred to me afterwards that nothing shocking or upsetting happened at all; that is, my emotions were not perturbed one way or another the whole time. Some of the social/political supertext was fun, but as far as characters go, Romero was apparently pretty content to be as predictably old-fashioned with their fates as possible. You know how every cast member will end up, how every situation will be resolved, how every instant of foreshadowing will climax, and even the gory mutilations are, with a few exceptions, all duplicates of ones from "Day of the Dead". Basically, it's kinda entertaining (more like a snack than a meal), but feels massively unnecessary in that we've seen it all before and Romero adds almost nothing to what we know about or have experienced via zombie movies; like, if this is all Romero had to return for after 20 whole years, I'm not sure I would have bothered if I were in his shoes. Even the curious notions of zombies learning to evolve was already covered in "Day", and far more poignantly then, too. If anything, the lesson Romero serves here is that zombie movies may have reached their full potential. After seeing the human body ripped apart in every way possible, is there any other original way that zombie violence can be portrayed? And honestly, while you can humanize the zombies to a point, claiming that they "only want somewhere to go" sounds like Romero is starting to believe his own bullshit a little too much. Face it: if you're going to treat a subject as wacky as zombies seriously, then be serious: they want to eat human flesh. That is all they want to do. That is their sole function in "life". Frankly, almost everything that Big Daddy does in the movie is impossible to accept. There's no way one zombie could learn so much so quickly. At least in "Day of the Dead", the smart zombie was being taught human behavior rigorously by a scientist; here we're told that he just learns it all by himself in a matter of seconds. How did he rally all the others? And how could he possibly have sympathy for his fellow zombies? Those are all novel concepts, I'll admit, but Romero does not make them believable. They all feel like forced contrivances.
I did like the set-up itself: that people could actually learn to forget that the world has been taken over by the undead and resume their lives as callous, self-centered pricks, re-establishing an entire class system within a 2-mile confine. And as usual, some of the philosophizing was fun to stew over, there are some nice touches here and there, and yes, it is a general thrill just to watch stories like these unfold. But there's no way you can come away from the movie feeling more than a tiny bit satisfied or "blown away" or really affected in any way. It's all just so featherweight, inconsequential, and redundant
P.S. Asia Argento: gorgeous
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jeff_v [ 7.5 ]
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I felt like kind of a stick in the mud, giving mixed ratings to recent zombie movies like Shaun of the Dead and the remake of Dawn of the Dead. But what I was holding out for was a good zombie movie, one with more than one idea in its head. That movie is Land of the Dead, directed by George Romero (who should be the only person directing zombie movies in my opinion). It's funny, inventively gory, and retains the social commentary of prior installments without feeling forced (except for the shots of the birdcage).
It seems that after all these years of zombie movies, Romero has grown to love the walking dead. Here, they alternate with a Carpenteresque band of rebels as the heroes of the story, battling a nefarious rich asshole (played with humorous understatement by Dennis Hopper). The ending is a tad perfunctory and unsatisfying, but if it means continuing the saga of Big Daddy in a future sequel, I'm there.
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.3 |
| No. Ratings | : 9 | |
| No. Reviews | : 4 | |
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