Land of the Dead
Metascore
71 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 30 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 30
  3. Negative: 0 out of 30
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  1. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Michael Rechtshaffen
    100
    The latest installment could well be Romero's masterpiece. Taking full advantage of state-of-the-art makeup and visual effects, he has a more vivid canvas at his disposal, not to mention two decades worth of pent-up observations about American society.
  2. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    100
    Romero's newest is a horror movie for hard-core fans of the gory and the gruesome and a classic genre film for genre aficionados.
  3. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Aaron Hillis
    100
    Land of the Dead is Romero's long-awaited masterpiece, a slyly suspenseful and droll thrill-ride that expounds on both the highbrow and the chewed-off-brow concepts of his previous trilogy, then flippantly dismisses the cheap scare tactics of the control-pad generation's gimmicky genre knockoffs.
  4. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    100
    One of the enormous pleasures of genre filmmaking is watching great directors push against form and predictability, as Mr. Romero does brilliantly in Land of the Dead. One thing is for sure: You won't go home hungry.
  5. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    90
    Romero easily commands an enormous cast, a plethora of action sequences and a cornucopia of special effects -- some of them very gory -- and creates one darkly dazzling image after another that allows Land of the Dead to emerge without any nudging whatsoever as a bleakly humorous, hard-charging allegory.
  6. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    90
    As the ghouls evolve toward humanity and the humans toward ghouldom, we can appreciate Romero for using horror to show us How We Live Now, and How We're Living Dead now, too.
  7. Variety
    Reviewed by: Justin Chang
    90
    George A. Romero shows 'em how it's done in Land of the Dead, resurrecting his legendary franchise with top-flight visuals, terrific genre smarts and tantalizing layers of implication.
  8. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Marc Mohan
    83
    Land of the Dead is huge. It's Romero doing what he does best: using zombies to create a lowbrow social parable. It shows up junk like "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" for the brainless pap it is. And it's got something that even the best previous "Dead" films have lacked: good acting.
  9. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Sean Axmaker
    83
    The social commentary isn't subtle, but Romero delivers the goods so effectively that many won't even notice.
  10. Empire
    Reviewed by: Kim Newman
    80
    Inventive suspense, spiky characters, outrageous horror and wicked satire. Welcome back, George - you've been away too long.
  11. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    80
    The satire is headline-fresh, the action scenes keep pace with summer blockbusters, and no one shoots an evisceration with as much skill.
  12. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    78
    Hopper, unsurprisingly, devours scenery like he's already dead and loving it, but for once his penchant for overacting is overshadowed by the real stars of Romero's world: They're dead, they're all messed up, but it's great to finally have them back in town.
  13. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    Romero finds still new and entertaining ways for unspeakably disgusting things to happen to the zombies and their victims.
  14. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not Credited)
    75
    Land is pure entertainment and superbly well done. It is not as scary as it is gross, and its grossness is so outrageously graphic (hint: don't seat yourself next to a zombie at your next barbecue) that it is laugh-out-loud funny.
  15. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    75
    Brains! Brains! Why can't they make a zombie movie with brains? This is one. Romero has given us, as well as the zombies, a lot to chew on.
  16. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: David Hiltbrand
    75
    Oddly enough, though Land of the Dead is more clever and grand than Romero's early classics, it is not as haunting.
  17. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Peter Hartlaub
    75
    The master is back, and there's no shortage of exploding brain matter -- or fun -- to be had in the theaters this weekend.
  18. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    75
    It's fairly solid fun, though, without breaking any new ground, just as January's remake of "Assault on Precinct 13" was.
  19. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Brad Wheeler
    75
    Land of the Dead is a horror flick, but not a screamy one -- the booming soundtrack pumps up the drama, and the gore induces squirms, but zombies more titillate than anything.
  20. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    70
    Romero isn't a subtle filmmaker -- the sociopolitical underpinnings of his DEAD films have always been brutally clear -- but LAND is alive with subtle touches.
  21. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    70
    Romero's fourth entry, turns out to be his most conventional as an action thriller--though it's every bit as gory as the others and more clearly class-conscious.
  22. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    63
    A perfectly adequate horror romp, but it's hard to imagine anyone remembering it five years from now.
  23. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    63
    It's not startling or frightening enough.
  24. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    60
    Romero's fourth-grade dialogue doesn't help matters, but anyone seeking out the latest achievements in cranial ruptures, spewing-blood gouts, and ground-beef spillage need look no further.
  25. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    50
    Looks and feels like someone else's better-made schlock.
  26. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Pete Vonder Haar
    50
    Land falls well short of the greatness of Romero’s previous zombie efforts.
  27. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Luke Y. Thompson
    50
    If the Star Wars movies have taught us anything, it's that waiting 20 years for a new sequel by a guy named George can lead to disappointment.
  28. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    50
    Land of the Dead is fairly intense. Intensely gory and violent, that is, as has come to be expected from the genre. It's just not very frightening. Not half as frightening as, say, last year's "Dawn of the Dead."
  29. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    42
    In Land of the Dead there are virtually no good parts. The movie is listless and uninspired.
  30. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    40
    Too bad the plot held no surprises and the acting no revelations. No actor could be said to stand out and the movie never acquires much tension or momentum.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
6.6 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 109 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 53 out of 74
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 74
  3. Negative: 13 out of 74
  1. Essej
    10
    Anonymous said: "I'm sorry, but when did zombie movies have underlying political messages." I'm sorry, since Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead. So... since the beginning.… Full Review »
  2. survivorfan989
    9
    A solid zombie film and one of my personal favourites, even though most say this is probably Romero's worst. I loved the concept and I thought it was clever having a few storylines worked in together, as well as being one of the first film to really focus on some of the zombies themselves. Simon Baker leads a talented cast that all play their parts well, as well as Dennis Hopper doing a great job as the head honcho. Overall a great film and zombie fans should be impressed!… Full Review »
  3. ILHM
    7
    In an ever-vigilante attempt to stay socially-relevant, George Romero creates a class struggle between the rich and the poor which is also personified in the battle between the living and the dead in LAND OF THE DEAD. Both human and zombie are only looking for the basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which have been stripped away from them by a tyrannical overlord that has seized control from his ivory tower, Fiddler's Green (perhaps in reference to SOYLENT GREEN, which seems to have heavily influenced the plot).

    Romero makes many poor decisions in LAND OF THE DEAD that fans are sure to disagree with, the first being the further humanization of the zombies. We saw in DAY OF THE DEAD that Romero's zombies had regained their basic motor skills. Here, they begin communicating, using tools, and strategizing, which is a huge stretch for creatures that are supposedly "dead,' and very difficult for audience members to accept. What is worse, Romero, whose films served as the pinnacle of special effects makeup throughout the 70's and 80's, has begun the downward slide into computerized imagery, particularly for the gore sequences. While it is less apparent in LAND OF THE DEAD, his subsequent films would be ruled by these cost-saving (but visually abhorrent) techniques. Only the practical makeup effects handled brilliantly by Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger call back to the greatness of the past three films.

    LAND OF THE DEAD presents us with no compelling characters to carry the story, just a group of mismatched rogues for whom we care nothing. The closest that we have to a hero is Simon Baker playing Riley Denbo, but all of his whining and sniveling gets him nowhere. Instead, it seems that we are meant to align ourselves with the zombies, who are the only characters that are portrayed in a sympathetic light, but this group only serves to annoy as well. The lead zombie, aptly named "Big Daddy," looks and acts nothing like the zombies we have come to expect in a Horror film, and even without the benefit of conditioning (as with Bub in DAY), he has rebuilt his intellect to near-human levels. This breaks continuity within the series, and would have worked better if overwhelming hordes of mindless zombies were left to overthrow Fiddler's Green.

    There seems to be an utter loss of direction in LAND OF THE DEAD that severely detracts from the film. The dead are left forgotten in the background as the living front their feeble uprising. Romero injects enough of his trademarked social commentary to credit the script with some intelligence, though LAND OF THE DEAD falls far behind NIGHT, DAWN, and DAY.

    -Carl Manes
    I Like Horror Movies    … Full Review »
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