DAWN OF THE DEAD 2004
Director: Zack Snyder
Screenwriter: James Gunn
Rated: R strong violence, SC, Gore and Horror
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, this 2004 remake of the original “Dawn of the Dead” movie is solid with good production values, good acting and a compelling story. This version amplifies George A. Romero’s 1978 zombies at the mall horror classic with a barrage of suspenseful action, some markedly quicker creatures, and a weird sense of humor. Like the original, a group of seven strangers band together at a local shopping mall (appropriately named “The Crossroads Mall”) after waking up one morning to find the world is now over run by the flesh eating undead. Snyder’s notable achievement comes pre-credits, when Sarah Polley’s nurse Ann having just fled her rabid hubby and daughter embarks on a terrifying tour of a suddenly apocalyptic Wisconsin suburb beset by raging fires, cars wrecking, screaming neighbors, and rampaging flesh hungry decayed humans. Ann teams up with a cross section of American society, which includes a cop played by Ving Rhames who is a religious feen, an honest father Jake Webber, and a husband Mekhi Phifer whose wife is about to give birth, and they all retreat to The Crossroads Mall to try and sort out the madness spreading outside. The director’s penchant for telegraphing everything with slow motion and menacing music as well as the seemingly unending series of action packed sequences begins to wear thin after a while, but it’s tough to complain about overkill when a film delivers the head splattering zombie goods as often as Dawn of the Dead does. There are early hints that Snyder is interested in duplicating the original’s consumer culture critique, such as when Ann comes home from work to find out she missed the “chubby” girl get kicked off (presumably) American Idol, or the sight of a sleek car commercial being interrupted by dire newscasts. Yet Snyder’s primary objective is figuring out how many zombies he can have shot in the head during a 100 minute movie. The answer, it turns out, is quite a few, and the director’s ability to meld such regular gruesomeness with light humor a musak rendition of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” playing in the mall elevator; a swing version of Disturbed’s “The Sickness” on the soundtrack; a domineering security guard derisively calling Rhames “Shaq” bolsters this bloody remake’s humorously gung-ho nihilism.
7/10 Stars