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“Land of the Dead”: ‘Mostly Dead’

George A. Romero wasn’t necessarily the first director to give the world a “zombie movie,” but he gave the genre life, so to speak. His films, “Night of the Living Dead,” “Dawn of the Dead” and “Day of the Dead” are hailed by some as masterpieces. They have spawned countless homages and some of the more recent additions to the genre have been terrific (see “28 Days Later and “Shaun of the Dead”). Now, Romero re-enters the world of the undead with “Land of the Dead” and many see it as the master seeking to regain his throne.

Let me say that the king is not dead, but he is not at the top of his game either.

“Land of the Dead” starts with a bang. Zombies have, for all intents and purposes, taken over much of the earth and humans are reduced to walling themselves off in portions of cities. Some live comfortably in a high-rise called Fiddler’s Glenn, owned and operated by a man named Kaufman (Dennis Hopper, channeling his inner-Republican), while others live in squalor. The opening sequence, a raid into a nearby town is full of fun. The zombies look great and Romero introduces a bunch of good laughs in the scene, including a zombie band attempting to play their instruments in the town gazebo.

The raiders work for Kaufman, entering towns for food and supplies and trying to kill as many zombies as possible. This is where we meet our hero, Riley, a solid leader who is ready to leave the city and try to find a place in Canada with no zombies or humans around. After the raid, one of Riley’s fellow raiders, Cholo, played by a relatively unannoying John Leguizamo, takes over a military type vehicle and threatens to blow up Fiddler’s Glenn if he isn’t paid the money he feels Kaufman owes him.

This is where the movie gets bogged down. Instead of trying to hold off an onslaught of zombies, we have a standard action plot taking up time as zombies advance on the city. The performances are not strong enough to make us care about the characters as they seek out Cholo and the vehicle.

While it is interesting to see what society has been reduced to and it is also interesting to see how quickly a class system and corruption rises after civilization has been destroyed, the film just didn’t click. If it was trying to be scary, there weren’t enough scares and if it was trying to be campy and fun, there were too many gaps where it wasn’t all that amusing. One thing that did produce laughs quite consistently for me, probably wasn’t supposed to be that funny. There is a zombie, known in the credits as Big Daddy, and he is the “leader” of the zombies. Throughout the film, Big Daddy evolves, learning how to use weapons and tools and figuring out that zombies can swim, etc. Whenever he finds something like this out, he grunts or howls, as if the film were a zombie version of “Quest for Fire.” I laughed a lot at Big Daddy, but it felt like I was the only one in the theater doing so.

Those who were expecting a masterpiece will likely be disappointed, but those looking for an harmless horror/acton flick will leave the film mildly satisfied. This is no classic though and compared to “Night of the Living Dead (the black and white version),” or “28 Days Later,” this movie falls short of the mark.

• *1/2