Here's one thing that isn't a spoiler: I was rooting for the zombies. Hell, I always do when it comes to zombie movies. I do have some sympathy for the main characters, the human 'heroes' in these films. But are they really heroes? Or just poor bastards trying to survive as their world collapses around them? Who cares? Go team zombie! George Romero brings the gore in this, his follow up to his trilogy of some 20 years ago.

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In this one, the zombies are the heroes. Its pretty far along in the timeline of the Dead movies. The country is in ruins, and as one character describes it there's a thousand zombies for every living human left. What humans remain have cobbled together a semblance of normality, living in a city protected by a private army, surrounded by barricaded bridges, electric fences, and three rivers. It's the biggest gated community ever. So they're safe in their little paradise, which looks a lot more like an upscale mall. Shades of the original (and remade) Dawn of the Dead, there. it's all run by Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) who maintains his stranglehold on the people of the city...well, I'm not sure how actually. Read on for my questions.

The mercenaries have a number of motocycles, souped-up jeeps and mustangs, and of course: the Dead Reckoning. Dead Reckoning is a bigass converted semi, covered in armor and loaded with missle launchers and gatling guns. it's pretty damned cool, a lot more impressive than the converted shuttle buses from the remade Dawn of the Dead that zombie fans may remember. The scenes where the Dead Reckoning runs amuck are some of the better ones in the movie.

The mercs are led by Riley (Simon Baker) who turns in a particularly vanilla performance. He's the mercenary with the 'heart of gold' who's looking to pull his 'one last job' before he skips town for Canada, because there won't be any zombies up in Canada. Riiiight. Well, there's actually some good thinking there as less people=less zombies. Anyway I like him as he's the one of the only humans with common sense in the movie.

Unlike Cholo, John Leguiamo's character. Another merc, he drives the story along by driving Dead Reckoning off and threatening to shoot up the city with it unless he's paid several million dollars by Kaufman. He actually fails to irritate me in this one, which is impressive considering it's John Leguizamo. Okay, he calls everyone 'baby' which is a little grating, but otherwise I'm all right with him; except for his motivation.

Now, I had some minor problems with some of the plot elements here. The main characters are a pack of mercenaries who go out into the ruins of America to loot whatever stores have canned food, medicine, or whatever else they can find. He pays them for this, as well as for other services. Cholo there, he tries to blackmail Kaufman...for money. Apparently in this shattered America, people still use paper money as currency...huh? There is no government, so how is paper money still worth anything? Not like you can pay off a zombie to keep it from eating your face. I'd think that having a couple of pistols would be worth a lot more in the grand scheme of things. Or the Dead Reckoning itself.

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But somehow Kaufman has managed to pay off a number of soldiers, guards, mercenaries, and even a frigging butler with his useless money. I don't see how these people would go for that...I'd think that having a gun or two would be worth a hell of a lot more than having a bank vault full of benjamins. But hey, maybe it's just a way that people cope here, ya know? If they can still work to earn money for their goods and services, they can cling to the past society that has been erased by the hordes of zombies. It's an odd coping thing I guess.

And for that matter, where are they getting all the ammunition for their many, many guns? I can accept the idea that they looted a number of abandoned army bases or whatever, but still. If the dead have taken over America for the past 20 years or so, how the hell are they replenishing their supplies of bullets? I'm willing to bet that the Remington plant has been out of business since day one of the zombie nightmare. And where are they getting all of their cigarettes? Or how is it that there are still towns in their immediate vicinity to loot? You'd think that they'd have to go pretty far out to hunt down fresh supplies at this point. Funny, Dennis Hopper was in Waterworld, yet another movie with a bunch of hardasses who have an unexplained supply of cigarettes.

But I digress. Waterworld sucked. Land of the Dead did not. These are minor quibbles, things that I am more than willing to suspend disbelief for in order to enjoy the flick. Moving on!

In this one, the zombies are smarter. Wicked smaaaht. Mainly, the bulky and oddly emotional Big Daddy (Eugene Clark). Big Daddy (a former gas station attendant-said vocation comes into play in hilarious fashion at the end) seems to be the most with it of the zombies, as he has a sense of self-preservation and revenge. He's a great motivational speaker too. Well, for a zombie. He grunts and growls until he's assembled a legion of pissed-off zombies, all looking for the big payback...oh yeah, the zombies have gotten smarter and they all took a page from Bub (the zombie hero from Day of the Dead) in that they can all use tools. Shovel, baseball bat, meat cleaver, pneumatic hammer, machine guns, machete...yeah. They throw down. They've evolved from their prior motif, that being 'wander aimlessly, eat the living.' They're more goal-oriented now.

Alas, poor Yorick.

But the actual zombies, theres a lot more care in these guys. In previous movies, there's not as much individuality shown in the zombies. You might get one female zombie in a wedding dress (we get one here too!) or a dead cop, or in Dawn the hilarious Hare Krishna zombie: but on the whole they're all the same model of undead: painted blue-green and shuffling aimlessly. Well, they're still shuffling aimlessly, but there's a lot more detail in these guys. The FX guys took care to really show the decay and wounds in this one, it's grotesque and a nice touch. We get the aforementioned ones, we also get a scary Little Kid Who Died at Prep School zombie, the Hipster Couple zombies, Old Lady Who Died at the Hairdresser's zombie, and the best of the lot: The Scary Undead Clown zombie. That guy comes in out of nowhere: scared the shit out of me. The only one who didn't really work for me was the Almost Severed Head Priest zombie. when you see him, you'll understand.

Also: cameos! Simon Pegg and Ed Wright (creators behind Shaun of the Dead) both show up as the undead, in a fucked up photo booth. I fail to see the intelligence behind setting up an undead photo booth. But better than seeing those guys, we get Tom Savini. It's like a reprise of his role in the original Dawn: same leather jacket, same mustache, same...machete. Which he's still good at using! He was great. Great to see ya Tom!

Sex Machine!

And the gore. The gore! If you have a weak stomach, stay away. For real. There's a ton of death in this one, both humans and zombie-style. Compared to the other ones, I'd say it outdoes Dawn. Yes, it's gorier than the original Dawn of the Dead. Flesh is torn, savaged, devoured; there's decapitations and head shots, heads speared, heads speared with crossbow bolts, heads kicked open and crushed and broken apart with a flagpole...yeah. It is hardcore. There's a scene where a horde of zombies chows down on a horde of yuppies, and it is amazing as far as zombie movies go. There's like 30-40 zombies all onscreen, all going to town on many, many victims.

...I feel like I learned something here. Well, not really. Screw learning! It's a zombie movie. And it's a great zombie movie. If you're a hardcore fan, you will not be let down. You may have some minor quibbles like I did, but if you've been waiting 20 years for the next Romero movie: you will not be let down.

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