My Review of "Land of the Dead"

Land of the Dead seems like a mindless zombie movie but there is a little more to this movie than just zombies. I have to admit that the zombies were the draw to me for this movie but they aren't the main emphasis of this movie. It turned out to be a deeper movie than I had anticipated and I appreciate the effort they put into this movie.

The movie starts out by giving the audience a better understanding of the world's situation. Zombies have dominated and humans have basically lost the war with them. They're just a part of life now and I guess humans are humans and we know how to adapt. Certain things are now hot commodities and there's good money in scavenging for these hot items.

This brings us to the main characters Riley and Cholo. The two are kind frenemies. They work with each other to get the job done but they have their own ulterior motives behind what they do. Riley is generally a good guy trying to do things to save people whereas Cholo wants to profit.

Cholo wants to live in this luxurious protected area that the rich reside. He's been working his way up so that he can live the good life. The problem is that there's this head kingpin that rules this rich paradise by the name of Kaufman. It's pretty much an elitist colony where they only invite people that come from wealth to be part of the group.

There's a bunch of social class clashing that goes on in this zombie world. You see what the poorer people do to survive and you see how the rich are basically oblivious of the zombie problem. It kind of reminds me a little of the movie the Snowpiercer.

To make matters worse it seems that humans have been underestimated the zombie threat. No one really anticipated on zombies to evolve but over so many years I guess that's what happened. Zombies are starting to think a little. They're starting to realize what the tools they have at their disposal do. Strangely enough they also seem to be empathetic of their fellow zombies.

This was an interesting twist to the story because it made me understand the zombie motivation to push toward the wealthy paradise. You never see zombie movies where the zombies are somewhat aware of the situation that they are living in. They were even able to give us some empathy for the treatment of some of the zombies even though we know that they're murderous beings. It's their nature though so can you blame them?

I really didn't anticipate on the movie's social commentary on class and social divide. This movie was made back in 2005 and yet these commentaries are still valid. It's a nice way to make this movie feel relevant to more people. I guess they figured that not everyone is into zombie movies at least have an important theme to talk about. The fact that it's disguised in this movie makes me think that a lot of people would never consider this when think of watching this.

Overall, it was a pretty entertaining movie that I had a blast watching through. I think it had a ton of interesting concepts and fun action scenes that will keep you in the movie. As a horror movie I don't think it was scary at all but again this is an older movie. I have to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. I think I would recommend this movie to my friends if they're looking for a zombie movie.