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Film

Also Opening: The unscrupulous and the undead

By STEVE PERSALL
Published June 23, 2005

	Coming to a darkened room near you Some things old, a handful new, some borrowed plots and a bit of boo: Summer films again marry the proven and the preposterous to lure fans to the movie theater. (5/19/05)

The only filmmaker with any right to make a zombie movie is George A. Romero, who practically invented the genre 37 years ago with Night of the Living Dead, then refined it with two sequels. Others dug up the bones of Romero's satirical gore since then - occasionally with his assistance - but it's a measure of Romero's vision that the only movie to get the idea right was last year's remake of his third film, Dawn of the Dead.

Romero is back with Land of the Dead (R), furthering his saga of a world overrun by undead cannibals. This time, the human buffet is located in an unnamed city, where survivors have massed in a high-rise community called Fiddler's Green. There still isn't a good explanation for corpses rising to munch on living flesh, or a clear-cut means of ending the slaughter. But we can expect more of Romero's social commentary in the guise of grisly fun.

Even the casting has a touch of class previously unseen in Romero's films. Dennis Hopper plays Kaufman, ruling Fiddler's Green with an iron fist, cleaning out undesirable elements like refrigerator leftovers for the zombies. Kaufman has mercenaries doing his dirty work, including John Leguizamo as traitorous Cholo, who steals Kaufman's key weapon - a tank dubbed Dead Reckoning - to make his move into Kaufman's penthouse, high above the carnage.

Land of the Dead wasn't screened in time for Weekend's deadline. A review will be published Friday.

[Last modified June 22, 2005, 10:45:07]