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Post by CK on Mar 22, 2007 12:44:06 GMT -5
1 being the worst, 5 being the best.
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Post by Jen on Mar 22, 2007 18:41:57 GMT -5
Not as good as the previous films, in my opinion, even Day of the Dead; it just lacked the smarts of the others. But still lots of fun, so I will give it a 3.
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Conan
DWI/Evil Dead Moderator
Pennywise
Posts: 6,432
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Post by Conan on Mar 22, 2007 23:53:38 GMT -5
I seems like alot of people hated this movie. I am not one of them. I loved it! It fits in very well with the other movies, and keeps the story line going.
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Post by GL on Mar 23, 2007 10:28:25 GMT -5
“Land of the Dead” is one of the best entries in the saga.
**SPOILERS**
Sometime after the zombies have risen to take over the world, the survivors have barricaded themselves inside walled cities. Led by businessman Kauffman (Dennis Hopper) who recruits a team of mercenaries to steal food from zombie-ridden areas and return it to society. After a mission, Riley (Simon Baker) the leader, and Cholo, (John Leguizamo) his second-in-command, get back, they are arrested for helping out prostitute Slack. (Asia Argento) Cholo gets sick of doing Kauffman's dirty work and steals Dead Reckoning, a special armored truck that Riley built for surviving the raids, hoping to shake up the established order. While Riley is out searching for Dead Reckoning, the living dead have learned to think and help each other out, and they begin their way to the walled city. On the outskirts of the city, the humans try to keep out the unwanted undead.
The Good News: Welcome back, George Romero. It has been a long time coming, and here he has finally given his fans the ultimate conclusion to his zombie series. Romero offers everything in here that his fans want: fast-paced action, simple storyline that can sustain a story for over an hour and a half, biting social commentary and big gore. That is par for the course with this film. The scares are also pretty abundant in the film. One of the better ones is early on. While raiding a super-market, one of the characters goes to the beer case. Once he opens the door, a zombie bursts out of the cabinet and attacks. Another big one is a scene where the zombies break into the harbor by hacking through a wooden plank. As soon as the plank is hacked through, a zombie on a rope trap swings by into view. The gore is effectively gruesome here, as usual. Savini isn’t here for the effects, which is sad, but he does have an amusing cameo towards the end. If you’ve seen “Dawn,” then his appearance will get a chuckle out of the faithful. His replacements on FX are quite capable, though, and deliver some grand set pieces and gags. Along with a gaggle of bites, there is some great corpse ripping, including one ripped completely open and entrails spill out. In addition, there is an effective sequence where a zombie bumps into another zombie and raises his hands to their head, as a round of gunfire opens up on the zombies. The first one turns around and discovers he has the zombies’ decapitated head in his hands. There is another great decapitation gag later that is far more graphic, where we see a person being decapitated by having his head and his spinal column ripped off. There is another great gore piece that is of special mention: during the ending, the zombies attack a giant indoor mall. One of the zombies takes down a teenage woman and bites into her stomach. A split second before, we notice that she has a belly ring. Knowing that 90% of the violence is shown, and with that bit of knowledge, you can draw your conclusion of what happened. Even the characters are interesting. Despite what the reviews say, the characters are worth the attention. Hopper gives a great performance as the greedy head of the city who only cares about how much money he can save on a new building or project. Baker is pretty good as a soldier of fortune forced to take a dangerous mission to save himself, but the best performance is Argento, an ex-prostitute who joins Riley’s team. She has natural charisma, is no stranger to this genre of work, and can play both the tough tomboy and the sex kitten. It is a great performance, and she should be a regular in the genre if things go right.
The Bad News: The main problem I have with this one is that the film is way too short. It barely comes in over an hour and a half, which is great, but it just seems like a bit more could’ve been put in to boost time. We don't know how the zombies have acquired this new ability to think: I’d like to know where it came from. For so big a production, an hour and a half seems like the film was hacked down to avoid a more severe penalty from the MPAA. For those who hated “Bud” from “Day,” there is another largely featured zombie in the film. He’s a big black auto repairman, and he's the chosen leader of the zombies, and he really doesn’t have the charisma to lead a horror flick. The ending is completely ridiculous and was another example of how the movie could’ve been padded out by another five or ten minutes to accommodate a better ending.
The Final Verdict: Despite the short length, this is still one of the best entries of the series. While not the classic that is “Night of the Living Dead,” this is for fans to decide what is better: “Dawn” or “Land.” It's up to them to decide, but it is a very close race. Take your pick.
Rated R: Extreme Graphic Violence, some Language, Brief Nudity, and mild drug use
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Canetoad
The Prodigal Toad
HMaM member of the Month, July 2006
Cry Havoc! And let slip the cats of war.
Posts: 2,868
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Post by Canetoad on Mar 25, 2007 6:12:01 GMT -5
Great film, but - and I'm not sure if this makes sense - Toad thinks Romero would have done better with a smaller budget and less grandiose ideas. Shoot me now.
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Post by CT on Mar 25, 2007 11:22:21 GMT -5
You're right in a sense Toad, I see what you're saying, but without those things, there's a good chance this wouldn't have been made at all, and that wouldn't have been a good thing imo.
I liked this one very well. Not as good as Night or Dawn of course, but it was still better than I expected. I agree with Conan, I liked the coninuation of the storyline. I thought it was pretty interesting how it was handled. And as GL pointed out, there's a ton of great zombie scares. And Dennis Hopper was very good.
4/5 from me
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HNT
Grizzled HMaM Vet
Horror in General & Everything Else Moderator[/i]
Kiss my tuchis
Posts: 6,296
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Post by HNT on Mar 27, 2007 9:47:20 GMT -5
I gave this one a three and I really liked it a lot. It was a bit too main stream and not as great as the original trilogy, but it was still a fun flick. It just seemed to be lacking a bit of the Romero magic and was a bit too generic. My biggest dissapointment was that when I picked up the unedited cut I expected to see great gore restored to the film that was edited fo the theatrical release, but the truth is that there was very little of interest added. That was a real shame IMHO
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Post by CK on Apr 4, 2007 16:59:57 GMT -5
I gave this one another watch. I have to say I liked it better the 2nd time around as opposed to the first. I loved savinis cameo, although I thought he looked too much lke sex machine from "From Dusk Till Dawn". But having Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright "Shaun of the Dead" doing cameos as well made my day! I think KND did a great job on the effects! I might watch it again tonight!
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Post by GP on Jun 14, 2007 19:24:21 GMT -5
The zombies have taken over the world yet the few survivors drive around on motorbikes or in open topped vehicles, fire off round after round into zombies' chests and stomachs, wander around in the dark listening to mp3 players, squander endless piles of ammunition and fuel driving around in a battle bus and zombies can teleport behind you in even the most well lit awning. It's a crying shame no bricklayers survived the holocaust, at least if they had the survivors would be able to hide behind more than a flimsy chain link fence! The astute characterisations of the earlier films went sadly missing along with the sharp dialogue and raw enthusiasm of an unknown cast. Simon Baker is so bland I can't remember who he is or what he looked like. Don't get me started on Big Daddy. etc.
2.
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Post by razors on Jul 15, 2007 16:18:14 GMT -5
1/5
This was probably the worst horror movie that I've ever seen. I found it incredably boring and pointless. And then when I found out that there were other "_ of the dead movies", I was angry. I have a FANTASTIC taste in movies and this one just didn't do it for me. But as long as some people enjoy it, then this film shouldn't be erased.
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Post by GP on Jul 15, 2007 17:12:04 GMT -5
1/5 I have a FANTASTIC taste in movies and this one just didn't do it for me. But as long as some people enjoy it, then this film shouldn't be erased. Truly your magnanimity knows no bounds.
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Post by razors on Jul 16, 2007 17:04:10 GMT -5
I don't know what that means.
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Post by GP on Jul 16, 2007 17:32:44 GMT -5
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Post by Dr. Butcher M.D. on Jan 24, 2008 11:33:18 GMT -5
hehehe...
Anyways I agree 100% with Ginger Pete. It looks like Romero fell off the deep end with this one. Land of the Dead is just bland, generic and forgettable like most of the mainstream films being produced these days.
What happened with this one?
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Post by abraxas on Dec 7, 2009 15:05:15 GMT -5
I loved the movie, hell of a lot better then Diary. And I disagree the progression of the zombies makes total sense, you see through the whole series the development of the zombies, this is well documented on the previous films. Certainly it wasn't better then Dawn or Night or Day, but then again those movies are untouchable by any standard. Hate Bub Ive never heard anyone say that they hated Bub fro Day of the Dead, thats utter blasphemy Land has one of the best gore shots ever filmed, the one where the zombies pulls out the guys insides through his mouth.
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