28 Days Later meets Resident Evil

Rating: Null/10 (20 March 2004)

This film remake, considered alone, is very reflective of those things that define the audience mentality today (or perhaps how Hollywood perceives the audience mentality...or possibly some combination of the two).
Whereas the 1970's classic was thought-provoking, smitten with anti-consumerism propaganda (zombies CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME...at a MALL, no less), and actually had a plot, this rehashing of only the most superficial themes is typical of Millennium Hollywood.
It's been done before. Take the zombies from 28 Days Later, put them in Raccoon City (ala Resident Evil), and tease the opening and closing credits with Blair Witch Project- esque clips.
Lots of visual stimulation, ridiculously loud noises (often the scariest noises were of the most mundane origin-i.e. sharp, grating doors opening, etc) lots of shock value, craptastic dialogue, limp thematic or moralistic exploration.
In this day and age, if you are looking for the opposite of the aforementioned in a zombie flick, then take your patchouli-stank esoteric arse elsewhere. Because that's not what Hollywood is about anymore, as we all know. If you're looking for the film to show to be true to its progenitor and tell a tale about the unraveling of society via mindless consumption, then this is not your film.
This is for the button-happy kids who love consoles. It plays out like the Playstation inspiration from which this film draws upon.
The lighting in the film makes everything vivid and uncomfortable; like being interrogated under a searing lamp. Details of gore are exploited, thrown in your face, and charged at you with the force of 1000 running zombies.

Taken merely at the entertainment level, the film is indeed entertaining. It's fun to cower in a seat for 2 hours, this stuff is really freakish. The plot moves so quickly, that you have about 2 minutes to get comfortable before you are thrown into the madness. The film will certainly please those with short attention spans (leave the Ritalin at home for this one, folks).
A bit of a zombie-epicure, I would've liked to see some social criticism. The most you can get out of the film is ambivalent: "the mall provides a safe-haven/salvation for the uninfected," and/or "the mall is where thousands of mindless, insatiable zombies flock, like Eddie Bauer-loving yuppies to a 2-day sale." The mall is used, because it was in the original. That's the only reason. It's clear that Romero and Co. missed the point.
It's like taking a classical, well-established library, gutting the inside, and replacing all that was sacred to the place with a bunch of Starbucks kiosks and some chain- bookstores. But still calling it a library.
Then again, THIS is just a movie about some zombies, with explosions and the graphic terrorizing that ensues. It's entertaining. Yes. See it, it will freak you out. It's fun to be scared.
The finest part of the film is the soundtrack. Johnny Cash and Disturbed, Muzak renditions of ironic proportions. Excellent. This will be a must-have soundtrack, if only for the brilliant, smarmy lounge cover of the "Down With the Sickness."
It's sad, though, that the time is gone, when zombie movies could be so much more.