Action packed, intelligent and daring to be downbeat.

Rating: Null/10 (1 May 2004)

Refitting the anti-consumerist messages of the old Dawn of the Dead to fit the jumpy, hyperkinetic, action packed template of recent horror action exercises (even stealing increased zombie speed and a certain graininess from 28 Days Later) turns out not to have been such a bad idea after all. Of course, grabbing from the most able and/ or typically underrated of b-list actors (Ving Rhames, Sarah Polley, Mekhi Pfifer and Jake Weber from TV's American Gothic) and keeping a keen focus on the characters of this remake doesn't hurt either. Rookie feature director Zack Snyder ably exploits a witty, canny rewrite of George Romero's classic of Zombie holocaust run amok in and around a shopping mall. The look here is less day-glo than the frequently well lit gore of 1978's Dawn, but cinematographer Matthew Leonetti is put to much better use with his dark frames here than in the reprehensible "The Butterfly Effect." Action packed, intelligent and daring to be downbeat.