Released in 2005 this is the fourth movie in the George A. Romero dead series and the first not related to the time of the day. It’s all about the Land now baby! It stars Simon Baker, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy, John Leguizamo & Eugene Clark and don’t forget a whole host of people playing dead people staggering around. This made for less than $19m it went on to make $46.8m at the box-office but never really lived up to the first two movies but was ok. The Tri-Critic Sync Challenge see’s two very close and the odd one is off on its own ruining the whole thing and for change its not me. It is IMDb who gave this movie a 6.2/10, where Rotten Tomatoes and I are very similar with them going for 74% one point below me. Which I have to say I was surprised about but its true. Should I move onto the plot?
We have moved on to a world that is owned by the dead there are outpost cities where we see one in Pittsburgh. It is surrounded by two rivers and an electric fence covering the land point of the city. The corrupt leader is just as corrupt as you get. The citizen live in relative safety secured by the boarders where the rich and powerful live at the top of tower blocks whilst the rest of the of the scum live on the bottom. The leader of the city is Paul Kaufman and he sponsors a team to go out in armoured personnel vehicle to collect things or do other missions. Riley is the leader of this team and commander of the vehicle and he is respected for loyalty to the citizens of the city and brings them back food and medical supplies. When out on a supply run, they notice some zombies acting in an unusual way by doing intelligent things and showing development of intelligence. They return and rescue a girl being thrown into a cage with a zombie who they rescue and she explains about being sentence to go in there by Paul (the leader) for instigating an uprising of the poor. His second in command has been promised a high rise flat as a reward for services is then turned down and told he isn’t getting one so decides to take the armoured truck and leaves the city with the aim of using it to take the city over. The leader who was arrested for the uproar caused at the zombie cage fights is told to go and retrieve the armoured truck. The leader catches up with him but his second in command has been bitten and planning on returning to the city to visit to have a word with Paul the leader. Riley takes control of his truck but decided he will use it to rescue as many people as possible from the city and then drive the truck off into the distance. Meanwhile there is one zombie that is talking and then teaching these other zombies how to use skills to benefit themselves and he schemes to take over the city where them living humans are at. Well Paul has an escape plan that he is going to use and leave the rest of the scum to deal with the shit... OK enough now.
This has to be a good movie as it has George A. Romero at the helm and he can do no wrong with a zombie can he. Well this could be seen as the last of the relevant one as he followed this one with Diary of the Dead which may not be the best out there. This was the first zombie movie to allow a dead zombie to begin to have an intelligence and then able to communicate with other dead. The weird thing here is that the dead follow his instruction and he is still just grunting and groaning but he masters an army of dead that he deploys to attack the power of the big city. Having a classic horror movie using the talents of Dennis Hopper has been there and done before. He plays his role to perfection to the ‘you go stand over there and get eaten while I escape in the car’. He is the true evil presence of this movie he is the low life of the human race to screw over people to advance his money and power. The zombies are the zombies and they are growing in intelligence which could set up the next movie to be really good and advancing the zombie story but that is not being reviewed here. This movie is ok. I enjoyed it but not the first time I watched it, this movie took a view or two to get going and I am happy to watch it again and I have done recently but would I go trawling through my DVD’s to watch this specific movie maybe not, but it does not disappoint really!
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