George A. Romero's Land of the Dead

Scott Hardie: “It was ok.”

For those who don't love zombie movies, or a great deal of automatic weapons fire, there's nothing to see here. But those with the stomach for this kind of violent gore-fest will be treated to a reasonably thought-provoking new variation on the theme, filmed by an original master who still knows how to direct the best eviscerations in the genre. I just wish there had been more to it: The film does its ninety minutes so well that I was left wondering how good another 45 would have been, since it does a brilliant job of introducing Marxist and Nietzschean concepts into Romero's eternal struggle between the haves, the have-nots and the undead, but then does nothing with them once introduced. Recent zombie flicks like "28 Days Later..." and "Shaun of the Dead" have found new variations on the same theme and followed them through to their logical conclusions, but Romero's latest flick concludes with a bullet-riddled finalé just as it should be warming up. It's technically excellent and Romero still loves to include fun little iconoclastic asides, but its shallowness ultimately makes this a minor effort from a director too long denied a film project large enough to encompass all his ideas.

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