An effective thriller... but not a masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (19 March 2004)

I haven't been transgressive in a while, so today I took an extra long lunch and went to see Dawn of the Dead. And now, rather than return to work, I'm going to write a review of it. It's Friday, don'cha know.
This movie is good. Is it as good as the original? Not by a long shot. The original is one of those horror movies that was seminal in opening up the genre and making people take it seriously, because it took time to create atmosphere, create characters and a character dynamic, and create a situation that raised all three to something more than the sum of their parts. This new film is just about getting you the thrills and getting them NOW. Nothing wrong with that, it's just a different movie. This one is a good thriller, but it won't stay in your mind like the first one does.
To me the opening scene of the original is VERY unsettling there's something that just says 'the world is coming apart' about a newscast, normally so controlled and scripted, devolving into chaos. The opening of this film is cool, but from the start the focus is on one woman, not starting with a wider society, THEN focusing on individuals. They get to the mall a LOT sooner than in the original, and there are almost no zombies in the mall. Once they get to the mall, this film follows its own course, with only minor ideas transposed from the original. The consumerist critique the first film had is alluded to here but over the intervening years the public HAS become so consumerist and genuinely excited by gadgets that I don't think the threat of that carries much weight with anyone. The irony here--not exploited as it could have been--is that many people WILL walk out of this movie into a shopping mall. But there are many missed opportunities.
The original had a great dynamic between the few survivors I especially admired the genius of including a nerdy guy who wanted to be cool and shoot guns like the others, and the hotshot who wants to take flashy risks, seemingly unable to comprehend the seriousness of the situation. Come to think of it, THAT'S the difference between these versions in Romero's, the characters have psychology (and psychosis) that matches what you think would happen in the case of a worldwide disaster like this (and also in the sequel 'Day of the Dead'). Here, Sarah Polley's character watches her husband be killed by a neighborhood girl she was friends with the day before, and she just has ONE 15-second crying jag thrown in like a cheap bone. The rest of the characters all seem to adjust fairly well, or have their one defining character trait happening in the background but this movie is ABOUT exploding heads, so. The difference here is between movie conventions now vs. then, but also between Romero's MIND and Zack whoever's mind.
Personally, I prefer my zombies slow. Slow zombies bring a sense of mounting dread and horror, heightened by the sense that they're so slow and dumb that they aren't really a problem until they gradually surround you. Here they're fast, which means all that dread is gone in exchange for them being able to jump out at you like--yawn--any other movie threat. This movie does suffer badly for following so closely on the giant boring turd that was '28 Days Later,' as the running zombie scenes are already pretty generic. But I guess modern audiences don't have the patience for any kind of effect that can't be communicated in under 3 seconds. In the original, I remember the way my stomach dropped when one of the zombies grabs the shotgun from a living character, and again when the zombies, safely on the first floor because they can't figure out stairs, get shuttled upstairs when the heroes turn the escalator on. No moments like that here, but the zombies do jump out a lot, and a lot more, and a lot more.
Let me take time out to say that Ving Rhames is HOT STUFF. But Ving Rhames in a cop uniform and aviator glasses with a cigar hanging out of his mouth is just off the chart. He could just BURN through the zombies. Then CJ, the redneck security guard is nice to look at too all in all, a surprising amount of eye candy for those 3-7 individuals left who prefer their men to still somewhat resemble MEN. This movie goes out of it's way to make the character most audience members will consider gay to be a spineless, selfish, snotty piece of garbage, but a short piece of video added during the credits identifies him as straight. He's--oh yes--a METROSEXUAL! This feels like a cop-out to me, but I guess we've come a long way that at least the filmmakers feel guilty for making the gay one the evil one.
I know I've done a lot of complaining, but this movie is a good basic thriller that'll give you a rollicking time at the movies. But once you leave, it's over. They just re-released the original on DVD, and I'm going to buy that and watch it for the fourth time, then watch it again with the commentary. This one I don't ever need to see again, and I don't care what the filmmaker has to say. So I guess that's my final assessment.
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