New York Times
"[A]n excellent freakout of a movie....One of the enormous pleasures of genre filmmaking is watching great directors push against form and predictability, as Mr. Romero does brilliantly in LAND OF THE DEAD." 06/24/2005 p.E1Los Angeles Times
"[The film] reveals that Romero remains the master of a genre he reinvented." 06/24/2005 p.E8 USA Today
"[The film] does have an 'old friends' dimension that warms the heart as its familiar-looking zombies eat hearts..." 06/24/2005 p.5E Uncut
"This is zombie infestation writ large, hundreds lurching through a nocturnal wasteland, photographed in an impressively desolate palette." 10/01/2005 p.138 Sight and Sound
"Paradoxically, this is the most hopeful film in the series, in that it presents a genuine movie-style hero in Simon Baker's handsome and compassionate Riley..." 10/01/2005 p.76 Rolling Stone
3 stars out of 5 -- "[The franchise] sprouts a new one, and a good one....[Argento] comes off like a tatted-up Meg White..." 10/20/2005 p.92 New York Times
"Mr. Romero is one of the great form-givers of the horror genre....The fresh element here is that the zombie underclass has evolved a leader of sorts, who possesses both a sense of historical self-awareness and an ability to use automatic weapons." 10/18/2005 p.E3 James Berardinelli's ReelViews 6 of 10
George A. Romero may have been the originator of the modern zombie movie, but, at least with Land of the Dead, he hasn't done much to refine it. The zombies are creepier looking than in the past, and the gore is more hard-core, but the story still boils down to the same old, same old: humans running away from hoards of slow-moving zombies. In a strange way, the film feels like a hybrid of last year's Dawn of the Dead remake crossed with Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. There's a sense that Romero has run out of ideas and is recycling. (I felt the same way about the third installment of this four-movie series, Day of the Dead.) The title, although appropriate, breaks the cycle. First, we had Night of the Living Dead. Then, it was Dawn of the Dead. Next, Day of the Dead. Shouldn't this have been Twilight of the Dead? - James Berardinelli
Variety.com 8 of 10
George A. Romero shows 'em how it's done in Land of the Dead, resurrecting his legendary franchise with top-flight visuals, terrific genre smarts and tantalizing layers of implication. Nerve-shredding fourth installment may not fully reclaim the visceral or satirical impact of the writer-director's 1978 masterpiece Dawn of the Dead, but it's still a satisfyingly splattery feast of guts and ideas. - Justin Chang
ReelViews 7 of 10
George A. Romero may have been the originator of the modern zombie movie, but, at least with Land of the Dead, he hasn't done much to refine it. The zombies are creepier looking than in the past, and the gore is more hard-core, but the story still boils down to the same old, same old: humans running away from hoards of slow-moving zombies. In a strange way, the film feels like a hybrid of last year's Dawn of the Dead remake crossed with Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. There's a sense that Romero has run out of ideas and is recycling. (I felt the same way about the third installment of this four-movie series, Day of the Dead.) The title, although appropriate, breaks the cycle. First, we had Night of the Living Dead. Then, it was Dawn of the Dead. Next, Day of the Dead. Shouldn't this have been Twilight of the Dead?...In the final analysis, Land of the Dead comes across as generic. Despite being steeped in darkness, it lacks the taut pacing and nerve-jangling suspense of 28 Days Later, and doesn't have the tongue-in-cheek approach evident in Shaun of the Dead. It's got great makeup, though. Credit Gregory Nicotero (who replaces Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead's Tom Savini) for making the zombies more frightening than campy. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
Now this is interesting. In the future world of "George A. Romero's Land of the Dead," both zombies and their victims have started to evolve. The zombies don't simply shuffle around mindlessly, eating people. And the healthy humans don't simply shoot them. The zombies have learned to communicate on a rudimentary level, to make plans, however murky, and to learn from their tormenters. When the zombie named Big Daddy picks up a machine gun in this movie, that is an ominous sign...The puzzle in all the zombie movies is why any zombies are still -- I was about to write "alive," but I guess the word is "moving." Shooting them in the head or decapitating them seems simple enough...It's good to see [Romero] back in the genre he invented with "Night of the Living Dead," and still using zombies not simply for target practice but as a device for social satire. It's probably not practical from a box office point of view, but I would love to see a movie set entirely inside a thriving Fiddler's Green. There would be zombies outside but we'd never see them or deal with them. We would simply regard the Good Life as it is lived by those who have walled the zombies out. Do they relax? Have they peace of mind? Do the miseries of others weigh upon them? The parallels with the real world are tantalizing. - Roger Ebert
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