George Romero, RIP

Rating: Null/10 (21 March 2004)

The fears of sacrilege were misplaced!
Snyder and Gunn's "Dawn" remake is more terrifying, visually intelligent, and unsettling than Romero's groundbreaking 1978 film. No one who loves horror will wish for that masterpiece to disappear: it's always going to be a brilliant sardonic take on the themes of 20th century American decline (consumerism, social Darwinism) and its radical vision helped take US horror cinema out of a long oafish funk. But the original "Dawn" is wearing its aging deathmask somewhat lopsidedly today. Next to contemporary work like this remake and the icily brilliant "28 Days Later," Romero's shambling rotters are at risk of becoming the equivalent of ghosts in sheets, just as the once-poignant setting of the shopping mall is no longer revelatory as it was in the 70s. Boo! is not the same for every age.
The new film lifts its sprinting zombies from Danny Boyle and its ideas, structure and best lines ("When there's no more room in hell...") from Romero. Everything else is Snyder's feel for the texture of the new American century, frail and uncertain of hiding behind banal excess: in fact, the genius of the film is to locate its opening set piece in the midst of an anonymous, pre-fab American suburb--the very heart of sham solace. By the time we escape to hunker down in the mall for the start of the second act, the torn landscape outside is as savage an apocalyptic vision as any yet on film.
Snyder's cast is likable, his eye good, and his luck in an editor and fx crew superb (we are treated to an astonishing cgi spectacle: a veritable ocean of the dead). Gunn's script is perfectly serviceable, even without Romero's nuances. 8 out of 10.