Not bad, not great...

Rating: Null/10 (21 March 2004)

To horror fans I would definately recommend checking this out. Is it better, or even as good as Romero's original Dawn of the Dead, or its predecessor and sequel? HELL NO. Have I seen better re-makes? Yeees, 'Night of the Living Dead' (1990) comes to mind...Is it a great movie? Gee, "great" is kind of a strong word...Is it entertaining? Yes. Despite its many faults, main one being that it associated itself with Romero's original in the first place, this is a very entertaining movie.
*SPOILERS* Most horror fans were warned going in that, aside from the location, the film's connections to the original 'Dawn' would be minimal. The main difference between this film and Romero's Dawn of the Dead, is this film chooses that edge-of-your-seat type scare (hence, the running zombies) where a zombie's mouth snaps shut just inches away from someone's hand or foot every couple of minutes, where as Romero chose the more thoughtful, subtler and creepier approach. Personally, I like it creepy, but that doesn't mean I can't also have fun with a slightly cheaper kind of scare. It never really presents itself as a satire, like the beloved "Return of the Living Dead", in fact, most of the laughs you'll have probably were NOT intentional, such as the girl risking life and limb to rescue a dog (a touching gesture, granted) despite the fact that the dog was never in any real danger (in this film, zombies don't eat animals for some reason), AND despite the fact that she doesn't really seem THAT upset that her father turned into a zombie and had his head blown off only a couple of days earlier. Maybe she bonded with the dog to fill the void of her father's absence, or maybe she was just slightly retarded, I dunno, but the writer and director could have MAYBE fleshed this out a bit more. Little things like that are pretty much what lower this flick to b-grade status. It's not hilariously bad, like the Z-grade 'House of the Dead', and not unwatchably bad like "Children of the Dead", but I don't see it getting any 'Horror Hall of Fame' awards any time soon, then again, you never know with Fangoria.... The opening of the film is ALMOST a thing of beauty. The way Snyder filmed the suburbs being torn apart was ALMOST on par with something Romero might have done. It really works well. After that, the movie falls victim to fast pacing. Important characters are often pushed to the side, and some scenes don't really get built up like they should, but hey, you wanna make an omlet, you gotta break a few eggs. Such is the plight of the hour-and-forty-minute standard running length. It's a shame too, because it really is a pretty good cast. Ving Rhames stands out with the best, and most consistent character, followed by Ty Burrell as the despicable Steve. Sarah Polley, Jake Webber, Michael Kelly, Mekhi Pfeifer, and Inna Korobkina are all good in what were clearly intended to be larger roles, but their characters all suffer an unfortunate lack of screen time. I'm guessing a few scenes were cut in order to focus more on the action. Next time they decide to remake an older zombie film and still have running zombies and a fast pace, might I recommend the Itallian flick 'Nightmare City' instead of Romero's masterpiece, 'Day of the Dead'? The change will be far less drastic. The end of the film (intermixed within the end credits) is also really entertaining. James Gunn apparently saw Fulci's 'Zombie' as well. Not a bad film, all-in-all, and I'm glad that if any movie could finally knock 'Passion of the Christ' to the number 2 spot, it was this one.