Though it is a fairly clichéd action/adventure exercise on the surface—the untested adolescent protagonist, his reluctant mentor, the antagonist so venal even his own men question him, the quest for vengeance—The Dead Lands is extremely well-shot and exciting and buoyed further by its novelty: it is entirely presented in the Māori language and submerges the viewer in an exotic and fascinating vision of a pre-colonization, hyper-tribal New Zealand. Comparisons to Quest for Fire and Apocalypto are apt.

B+