It's been 20 years since George A. Romero's last zombie movie, and a lot has happened in that time. Most significantly, the influence of his original Dead trilogy—1968's Night of the Living Dead, 1978's Dawn of the Dead and 1985's Day of the Dead—has come to bear on several generations of horror filmmakers. Zombie movies from the frenetic 28 Days Later to the comedic Shaun of the Dead to the souped-up Dawn of the Dead remake have taken Romero's original concepts and style to whole new levels. Which means that with Land of the Dead, his return to the genre he created, Romero has to play catch-up, offering up not only something new compared to his own films, but also something new compared to his progeny.
Unfortunately, he doesn't quite deliver. Land is a decent zombie movie with a few moments of truly powerful creepiness, and it has some of Romero's trademark social commentary, but compared to his predecessors, or even to Shaun or 28 Days, it falls short. If you took Romero's name off the credits, you'd be hard-pressed to believe the film was anything more than a competent, well-executed Romero knockoff, with little in the way of originality.
One problem is that Romero has exhausted the possibilities of his Dead universe. Since each film has been a freestanding story with no continuing characters, there aren't any old favorites to check in with. Instead, we get another ragtag band of survivors who are not all that different from any in the previous Dead movies, and who never really develop beyond the basic traits they exhibit in the film's beginning.
After an opening montage explaining the basics of Romero's world (the dead have risen from the grave and feed on human flesh; they can be killed only by a shot to the head; anyone bitten by a zombie will become one themselves), we meet a crew of scavengers led by heroic Everyman Riley (Simon Baker), who venture forth from an isolated city (never named but meant to be Romero's hometown of Pittsburgh) to gather supplies for the inhabitants.
The city, surrounded on three sides by water and protected on the fourth by an electrified fence, has successfully kept the zombies at bay, thanks in no small part to rich businessman Kaufman (Dennis Hopper, tweaking his counterculture persona), who has established an exclusive colony of the rich and powerful in a modern high-rise called Fiddler's Green. While Kaufman and his associates live in luxury away from the undead, the average citizens, including Riley and his crew, live hand-to-mouth on the streets, surrendering their scavanged goods to Kaufman as payment for their safety.
It's the haves vs. the have-nots, with the zombies, who've learned some rudimentary tool skills and inevitably breach the city's defenses, as a sort of liberation force, pushing the wealthy out of their cozy comfort and delivering a brand of comeuppance on behalf of the average person. When Hopper's suit-clad capitalist sneers, "We don't negotiate with terrorists," as he's threatened by greedy underling Cholo (John Leguizamo), you know exactly what Romero is trying to say.
The problem is that he's said it before, and more eloquently. With its rows of upscale stores, Fiddler's Green is not all that different from Dawn's shopping mall, and the idea that rich people are trying to oppress the poor even in a world overrun by zombies is not particularly revelatory. At 90 minutes, the film is brisk to the point of being perfunctory, and a moral decision that took up nearly half of Dawn's running time—do we kill someone who's been bitten by a zombie before they transform?—is dispatched here several times in a matter of seconds.
Romero still knows how to bring some scares, and his gore is as horrific as ever. He manages to create two indelible images—one of zombies rising from the river that's supposed to protect the city, and the other an overhead shot of the undead swarming the empty city streets—but two is all he manages. For zombie aficionados, this may be enough, but for those who've waited 20 years for another expert combination of social satire and zombie action, Land is a serious disappointment.