Two weeks ago
I reviewed 1978's Dawn of the Dead
for my Horror Origins series. I'm not
going to re-defend my position on believing it and not Night of the Living Dead is the true start of the series. But I will readily admit that this gave me
the opportunity to compare and contrast 2004's Dawn of the Dead remake.
Muahahahahaha!
On to the
review!
George
Romero's original Dawn of the Dead
was a very slow-burning horror movie that tried to scare us as much through the
horrors of consumerism as it did with the horrors of a zombie outbreak. Zack Snyder's 2004 version drops most of that
sissy consumerism talk and gives us faster, scarier zombies to make up for it.
Nurse Ana
(Sarah Polley) wakes up one morning to find the neighbor girl standing in her
hallway, refusing to answer any questions.
Despite this, Ana wants to find out what's wrong, but of course the
ungrateful brat just proceeds to bite into her husband's neck. This has the unsettling effect of first
killing and then zombifying him.
As she tries
to flee her idyllic Milwaukee suburb, she joins up with police officer Kenneth
(Ving Rhames), Best Buy salesman Michael (Jake Weber), petty crook Andre (Mekhi
Phifer) and Andre's pregnant wife Luda (Inna Korobkina). In an attempt to hide out from the growing
zombie population, they head to the local mall only to find it occupied by
three mall cops. Of course, the leader CJ
(Michael Kelly) is a giant douche and he locks them up in one of the stores.
While they at
first don't mind incarceration over being eaten, they later force a coup and
take in several other survivors. Over
time they see their supplies and hopes dwindle, so they decide to try to get to
a boat and make their way to an island, any island, in the hopes that it will
be safer than the now-surrounded-by-the-undead mall.
When I say
that this is just an actioned-up, thought-free version of the original, I
really mean it. The zombies are
scary-fast and viscously brutal. There
are no real subplots to speak of, other than a few character development arcs
that do nothing in the end but add to the violence. The mall is not the playground it's made out
to be in the original Dawn of the Dead. Here it is merely the set piece for some
sexy, brutal man-on-zombie action.
While the
zombies are certainly better looking than the original thanks to 25 years of
make-up development, it's somehow less frightening to see people caught and
devoured by these new creatures. When
you're bitten by a dull-witted, shambling, sorry excuse for a murderer, there
is a certain amount of shame and horror involved. When you're grabbed by a drooling murder-creature
running at a full Usain Bolt sprint, it's just a shitty day.
For the
observant, there are a few nods to the original. For example, the original biker gang leader
from the 1978 version, Tom Savini, shows up on TV as a cocky, confident County Sheriff
who demonstrates how best to kill this new menace.
One other
point of interest is something I noticed while watching the opening scene. The latest Resident Evil movie, Resident Evil: Retribution began with a
nearly identical opening. Similar
deaths, similar chaos when the female lead steps outside, same violence and
similar reactions all-around. It's to
the point that I would be interested to know if they actually used the same studio
back lot.
Overall, it's
a fine, moderately entertaining action movie that did well enough to get its
own remake sequels, but it's a far cry from the creepy, intense atmosphere of
the original. While the viewer was never
really sure what was going to happen or who was going to die in the 1978
version, here you can pretty much label your characters as Victims 1-10.
If you love action movies and violence, I would recommend Dawn of the Dead 2004 as your movie. If you want a horror, you may want to look
someplace else.
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