Fast Moving, and that's just the Zombies!

Rating: 9/10 (23 February 2006)

At last, a re-make that's good to watch. It's rare to find a re-make that has the perfect balance between the plot of the original and a few new features of its own. The zombies move at speed, but this is supposed to be set in the immediate aftermath of their death. Think about it for a moment, the creatures have only just passed away and the rot hasn't taken hold of them or eaten at their muscles.
The director handles the atmosphere perfectly. The viewer is taken from the calm of the night before and is plunged into the nightmare and chaos of the day after (and all within the first ten minutes).
If you're looking for the same feelings that the first version managed to generate, then see the first version. The re-make is faster, and full of gore, and is in many ways better suited to the age in which it has been made. The simple truth is that a film like the first version would flop at the cinema in the same way as a novelist in the style of Jane Austin wouldn't make a packet in the modern era. The cinema-going audience expects everything to be fast and bloody, and that's precisely what you'll get if you watch this film.
The best way of describing Dawn of The Dead is to imagine a mixture of Day of The Triffids meets 28 Days Later and throw in a touch of Night Of The Comet for good measure. All in all, Dawn of The Dead is an excellent film and what it may lack in dialogue it more than makes up for in fast action and good acting.
If you haven't already seen this film then rent it at the weekend, but make certain you keep watching after the boat sails off into the sun. I'm afraid that I left the cinema as soon as I thought the film had ended and, when someone told me about the ending that unravels whilst the credits are coming up, I had to wait to rent it out once the DVD was on the shelves at the video shop. The final scene is amazing.
The only problem with the film is that the characters are all ordinary people with no combat experience and yet they handle themselves and their weapons with the professionalism of trained soldiers. For example: I would have liked to have seen Anna struggling a little longer with the re-animated fat woman, but if that's my only criticism, I guess I should have given the film ten stars and not nine.