LAND OF THE DEAD (4 outta 5 stars) George A Romero returns to the zombie genre to show that the old grandmaster hasn't lost his touch. Okay, right off the bat it has to be said that the movie isn't quite the groundbreaking work that the original "Night of the Living Dead" was... nor does it have the epic grandeur of "Dawn of the Dead"... but it definitely equals and/or surpasses "Day of the Dead" and 99% of the Romero-inspired ripoffs and homages that have been churned out in the last 20 years or so. The zombies in Romero's world continue to evolve from film to film... in this latest installment they seem to be developing better reasoning skills and learning how to communicate with one another. They still move slow but danged if they don't have the nastiest habit of suddenly popping out of nowhere. Unlike previous installments, this time Romero has put a few "name" actors in the lead roles: John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper and Asia Argento to name a few. While this means a goodbye to the almost documentary-like ambiance of the previous "Dead" movies... it was probably necessary in order to get this movie made in the first place. The actors do a good job of inhabiting this universe, though... they never seem out of place, like "stars" doing their "thing" sometimes do. This doesn't quite have the sweeping scope that I was looking for in a Romdeo-directed continuation... so here's hoping that he gets to do another final chapter in his decades-long "living dead" saga.
Review of Land of the Dead
