Ungreatful Dead

Rating: Null/10 (29 March 2004)

The ungreatful dead: "Dawn of the Dead" 2004 remake review
When you remake a movie, particularly a truly classic genre film such as the original George Romero "Dawn of the Dead" (sequel to "Night of the Living Dead", and occuring, as the name suggests, the morning after the night), you are faced with two somewhat bitter options: Either try to zero in on the essence of what made the original a classic, attempt to distill it, and then attempt to replicate it or look at the original in a broader sense, and find another aspect of its success to bring forward and focus on. Successful remakes almost inevitably have chosen to readjust the focus of the film. They correctly realize that competing with a classic, brilliant film is impossible, and that to attempt to ape its success usually comes across as derivative or just pointless. A good example would be the 1997(?) remake of Alfred Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder", which starred Michael Douglas and Viggo Mortessen in his first major starring role. The cast and direction were really quite excellent, and the story and script remained faithful to the original. But that was the problem: critics and audiences were bored with such a by-the-book retelling of something that had already been made perfectly. In otehr words, what's the point of even successfully immitating greatness? On the other side of the equation exists Steven Soderbergh's remake of the Rat Pack classic "Ocean's 11". Soderbergh steered away from the original's cynicism and celebrity-worship, instead working to create an involving and good-natured heist film, which succeeded with audiences and critics. Fortunatly for the continuing half-life of the zombie genre, the new "Dawn of the Dead" doesnt attempt to recreate the deft social commentary and bleak nihilism of the original. Instead, it simply tries to entertain, frighten, and compete with "The Passion of Christ" in terms of violence, only without such a silly plot. The plot centers around a few scattered survivors of the chaos and carnage that emerged from an urban center which suddenly has gained a plethora of inhabitants even more conversationally stunted than the yuppies that previously called it home. In addition to poor conversational skills, they crave the flesh of the living. Which poses a rather significant threat to those living who desire to keep their flesh intact. Hilarity ensues. And by hilarity, I mean vicious flesh-rending bite-related deaths. Even though the movie really can't claim to offer anything fresh to cinema (zombie movies by nature can't really diverge much from formula, and this one is a REMAKE of another zombie move) it seems content to simply deliver on the premise as much as possible, which actually ends up making it head and shoulders above most other undead flicks. The opening sequence, where mild-mannered nurse Ana (Sarah Polly, the blonde from "Go") without warning finds her urban paradise transformed overnight into a chaos of fire, cannibalism, and the very likely cancelation of "Frasier", may become something of a classic to the genre. It is impeccably executed, and really genuinely scary, with a deft realization of the outside world and a subtle but very important sense of scope. As the movie progresses, a number of other memorable scenes emerge, but none surpasses the sublime horror and careful attention to detail of the opening sequence. The movie is really quite flawlessly directed by Zack Synder, a first-time director. His sense of atmosphere serves the film beautifully, and his camerawork (much of which is tinted or saturdated), while nothing Earth-shattering, works marvelously to establish mood without being distacting. The script by dubious Hollywood writer James Gunn ("Scooby Doo") establishes some very interesting sequences and set pieces (on in particular revolves around communicating with a gun-store owner who is trapped in his shop across the street, with what is either the Libertarain national convention or a mob of flesh-starved undead between him and the realative safty of the mall. Such sequences are unexpected pleasures with keen attention to detail, and prove essential to keeping audiences interested, particularly through the middle of the film, where the zombies take a notable backseat to some rather flismy character developement. It is unfortunate that for all the attention paid to the details of the zombies and locations, so little effort went into the characters. There are too many, first of all, so only a few even get more than a few lines on-screen. Even the ones that do suffer heavily from expositoroisis, the tragic condition wherein the victim can utter only lines of needless expository dialouge ("No! There are zombies out there!"). What little developement there is only builds characters of the most archetypical type. People leaving the theater refered to charcters as "That trucker lady" or "the white guy with, you know, that funny nose"... not a strong indicator that we can sympathize much with the victims. Still, the actors, particularly Ving Rhames as the stoic policeman and Jake Weber as a former electronic salesman who becomes the makeshift leader of the group, do well in imparting a certain degree of character and humanism into a somewhat losing battle against charicature. We would certainly not be able to watch a movie just about these characters, but since the conflict is a little less specific (man vs nature, man vs undead hords) we can at least root for them by default. And after all, the original version had better developed characters, but they all, almost without exception, turned out to be completely unlikable. So, maybe we don't have to be in love with the charcters for a film like this to work. All things considered, "Dawn of the Dead" brings little new to the table, except a firm committment to be a serious, highly professional genre film. It falls far short, for instance, of last year's visionary and brilliant "28 Days Later". But its highly-focused vision pays off in the end and allows it to succeed where the vast, vast majority of movies of its ilk fail, making it almost essential viewing for the true re-animated corpse enthusiast. Even those not particularly enamored with the concept of the cravings of crusty cadavors, the film is engaging and should certainly satisfy any cravings for non-religious bloodlust or serious, focused horro r. A very light touch of black humor and some cameos by Tom Savini (make-up artist for the original "Living Dead" series) and Ken Foree (star or the original) should be enough to bring in those still on the borderline. And besides, you have to have a certain respect for a zombie movie that shirks the mind-numbing hardcore rap-metal that plagues most horror films these days in favor of the up-tempo, oddly haunting strains of Jonny Cash's apocalyptic classic "The Man Comes Around". Anyone who thinks otherwise, well, they're just, dare I say, Dead wrong.