a review of 活死人之地 Land of the Dead

𝖍𝖔𝖔𝖕𝖙𝖔𝖇𝖊𝖗 𝖝 𝖓𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙 𝖋𝖔𝖚𝖗: Went in not really knowing what to expect out of this one, but was pleasantly surprised. I was especially worried that given the release date, there'd be a lot of way-past-expiration War on Terror/Iraq War allegorizing going on here, but instead I feel like Romero was a little ahead of the curve. In imagining both our current state of disaster capitalism vis a vis the increasing desperation of ordinary folks (represented by both our stalwart survivor posse and the rampaging zombie hordes) versus unaccountable moneyed elites, Land of the Dead feels like it could have been made yesterday instead of nearly 20 years ago. I only wish that the actual narrative thread containing all of these themes had been just a little stronger, at least in terms of developing the rivalry between the Simon Baker and John Leguizamo characters beyond the pulpy shorthand we're given. While the zombie gore effects are impressive, the actual onscreen action involving the zombies and the armored "Dead Reckoning" supertruck felt slightly underwhelming, which is absolutely a factor of the surprisingly tiny budget Romero was working with here. All the same, I had a good time with this one and the running time went by quick.