was shaking my head through the entire film.

Rating: 1/10 (20 February 2005)

I LOVE horror films. And zombie films have a place in my heart, especially George Romero's zombie films. And when I heard of a remake of Dawn of Dead with Romero having a hand in it, I was excited. Finally a decent budget and modern day effects along with Romero's touch. Unfortinately I felt betrayed and very unsatisfied after the first 10 minutes of the movie. And sadly the rest of the movie followed suit. The only good thing if any in this film was thankfully the gore wasn't restrained, But that's the only decent thing about this film.
What makes this film so bad? Well it follows the trend of movie 'remakes' which in reality are a totally different movie and using an existing title to get fans to watch. And unfortunately this was no different. The director simply had no respect for the original masterpiece of it's older namesake. It lacked everything that made the original so memorable and replaced them with cheap thrills, action sequences and annoying characters. I understand that it was Mr.Snyder's first time, But jeez he already had a base to go on and plenty of reference material. The Mall seemed to be there in name only, and the zombies where laughable rather scary.
There's not enough space and time for me to explain every reason why this film was beyond disappointing. So I'll just summarize instead.
First 'And foremost' the zombies. They ran, they climbed, they hissed and they made threatening faces at you. Wrong, very wrong and shouldn't even be called zombies. Romero understood what made the zombies so scary in the original 'Dead' movies. They were believable, and that's what made them scary. Because he realistically portrayed what a reanimated dead corpse would do. Their muscles where too rotted and stiff to move fast or do complicated movement, if at any. They were too stupid to speak or make facial threats at you. And they were relentless and numerous. They simply wouldn't stop and they were simply so many it was overwhelming. These aspects are what made Romero's zombies so scary, the 'remake' is completely devoid of all of that.
Secondly was the overwhelming stupidity of all the characters, It's expect that a few of the characters in films such as these are supposed to be stupid. But in this case they all are and none of them give you a sense of loss, (infact quite the opposite) when they are finally dispatched. The only character I felt sorry for was the lone gun-shop owner, But his demise was all but predictable and on the whole, irrelevant. The rest of cast, you feel rather gratified when they meet their doom. In this film, The characters and the zombies have something in common, their IQ.
Films like 28 days later and Return of the Living Dead I enjoyed, even though they feature what I described as (the first part at least) as Dawn 'remake''s failings. But neither of these films boasts or pretends to be on the same level of Romero's work. 28 Days Later is not a Zombie film per se, as the people weren't undead but diseased, so them running and screaming wasn't as far fetched. And 'Return' was more comedic and satirical in nature as well as it took a totally different path from Romero's 'Dead' movies, Dan O'Bannon made it abundantly clear that his movie had nothing to do with Romero's work or story lines. The 'Remake' however boasts about remaking a classic that carries the same name, this is where it becomes inexcusable.
If at all possible, watch Romero's 1979 version of Dawn of the Dead. It's a classic, And avoid the 'remake' travesty of a film.