Land of the Dull (Land of the Dead (DVD))

Name: rleigh

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Product:	Land of the Dead (DVD)
Date:	21/03/08 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some of the extras included on this DVD are quite interesting, decent special effects.

Disadvantages: The film is very dull, the acting performances are incredibly poor.

My obsession with zombie films started some years ago now when I was browsing through the channels late one night and stumbled across George A. Romero's 1978 telling of 'Dawn of the Dead'. The film has since been successfully remade by Zack Snyder and his own adaptation of that film was released in 2004. An interest in the George A. Romero films of old was thus renewed, and in 2005 the much anticipated 'Land of the Dead' was released, a follow up to the film 'Day of the Dead' which was released some 20 years previously. When released at the cinema I did not go out of my way to view this film, I had a bad feeling about it and therefore left it until the DVD was released in order to give the film a go.

'Land of the Dead' is aptly titled as zombies have now taken over the world as we know it, with few still alive and well a walled-in city has been created in order to keep zombies out and to protect the land of the living. Zombies are gaining in intelligence, they are not the inferior beings that they once were and as time elapses they are constantly becoming an increasingly advanced society. A revolution is planned to overthrow the leadership of the living, no one is safe as this film unfolds; the zombies are a constant thorn in the side of those still alive and remaining undead may soon prove an incredibly difficult task.

This film had a massive budget of 16 million dollars, but did the end result really warrant the great expenditure? In my opinion 'Land of the Dead' is a massive let down of a film and as I watched it I could feel nothing but disappointment. I had a feeling that it wouldn't be too great, but still I remained as optimistic as possible before obtaining this on DVD and when I sat down on an evening to watch it I was actually greatly excited. A few friends of mine that had seen it at the cinema seemed greatly impressed, and I had began to think that my refusal to see this at the cinema had perhaps been a mistake. This was obviously not the case, for the majority of the duration of 'Land of the Dead' I actually found myself to be really rather bored. It is not typical for a zombie film to bore me, and what should have been scaring and shocking me was instead merely sending me to sleep.

'Land of the Dead' can not be viewed as a horror film, but instead as a rather dull display of an action film. Some of the scenes are quite enjoyable in that the special effects are of a high standard and it is therefore a fascinating visual display, but the acting that is on offer here is incredibly poor and at all times a huge let down. No one really puts in an impressive performance whatsoever, and other than the wry smile of a zombie as he causes a great explosion and resultant death of a living human; every performance here is entirely unmemorable and no longer than 40 minutes after watching can I honestly say that any one persons display of acting is anything other than a blurred distant memory.

Conventionally I would say that there are elements of horror here. Yes it's a zombie film, and yes they love to eat flesh; but at no moment is 'Land of the Dead' ever scary and it is this that makes it so utterly disappointing. It's billed as an 'Ultimate zombie masterpiece', a zombie horror to scare its audience around the globe. The film is devoid of any scares whatsoever and it would seem that George A. Romero should have remained on his zombie film hiatus and not have come forth with this epically disappointing zombie film flop. I had such a high opinion of the man before this film, each of the three films that came before this had me utterly engrossed and scared in my seat as I watched on whilst the zombies devoured flesh and always emerged at the most inappropriate of times. 'Land of the Dead' is nothing like its predecessors, it's a far inferior example of a horror film and is not one that I found at all enjoyable to watch.

Predictable and bland, 'Land of the Dead' progresses without any real shocks or surprises and on the few occasions I have watched this always I have been appalled by the lack of imagination that is shown here by the once great zombie film director George A. Romero. I watch this with renewed enthusiasm every time, perhaps there was something I missed on previous viewing occasions I think to myself but every time I realize that my initial thoughts and feelings about this film had been correct and that this film is in fact not very good at all. Without doubt there are worse zombie films out there than this, it goes without saying that George A. Romero has not here directed the poorest film of this sort in history but nonetheless it is still pretty terrible. At the box office this film grossed a total of $46,770,602, not bad for a film so lacking in depth and substance. It just goes to show how little you have to do to make so much money if you take a twenty year absence from a zombie series as popular as that of George A. Romero's, the film made over $10 million dollars in its opening weekend alone in America; a figure that alone returns two thirds of what it cost to make this poor excuse for a zombie film. It's really quite ridiculous how well this film fared, I personally am actually quite ashamed to have paid good money to have purchased this DVD and yet had to really in order to complete the collection.

In no way can I recommend this film, paying good money to see 'Land of the Dead' is really not something that I would advise. Unless like me you feel you need to own this DVD in order to complete your collection then I'd say steer well clear of this film. For me 'Land of the Dead' is just one huge disappointment, a poor film from a director I once thought so much of. Watching the extras you notice that George A. Romero does seem to genuinely still hold a fond love of zombie films, he doesn't however seem capable of capturing his enthusiasm on film and as such has directed a truly terrible zombie film in 'Land of the Dead'.


Director: George A. Romero
Year of release: 2005
Genre: Horror
Language: English
Runtime: 93 mins
BBFC Rating: 18

Summary: 'Land of the Dead' is an extremely disappointing film from the once legendary George A. Romero.