28 Dawns Later???

Rating: Null/10 (16 October 2011)

I've not been fair with Zack Snyder's remake of George A. Romero's epic horror film over the years, simply because even though I initially loved it enough at the cinema to see it twice, the original was "the original" and best.
I cannot deny that the 'Dawn of the Dead' remake was, and still is, possibly the best zombie film since the original (actually I'm a huge fan of Day), even though it made some daft mistakes.
'Dawn of the Dead' (2004) did for the ailing American horror movie what '28 Days Later' did for the then recently revived British horror movie and Snyder may have been late but he was right on the coat-tails of Alex Garland and Danny Boyle's reinventing of the classic zombie apocalypse. Running zombies are just silly outside of the Left 4 Dead game series, in my opinion.
As hot new property cutting his teeth on the movie industry, Snyder's approach was to provide entertainment that both airheads and connoisseurs could agree on and the standard was simply to be innovative. In this movie, the times have changed, as have the rules and the people that abide by them. And so has most of Romero's original script, for that matter, re-written by none other than James Gunn, who at least has a wicked sense of humour.
As opposed to the original, this zombie apocalypse is more explosive in its delivery and yet there is no fighting to liberate the mall our characters stumble across. In fact, unlike the original, this version hardly fancies the idea of fighting a bunch of runner zombies until they absolutely have to and when they do, it's fleeting.
Saying that, Snyder's use of realism is the first element to set itself apart from the original, as is his favouritism of pace over suspense. Whereas in the original there were four characters finding their own way to overcome the threats of a world suddenly invaded by the flesh-eating dead, this version sees a collective of irritating modern day American civilians forced to cope with each other as their greatest threat behind locked doors becomes the stereotypes they must overcome.
My personal favourites are Ving Rhames, Michael Kelly and Jake Weber. The rest are pretty redundant most of the time, which makes me wonder why they needed more than the original four. But then Tucker, the truck driver, is great because he's useless.
The choice in actors does make for a pretty good drama with some good comedy moments, though, and also some pretty good action scenes. The characters range from genuine hard-cases and big talkers to scared or stupid air-polluters.
I was left cold by some of the effects and zombie prosthetic make-up and gore. The brain exploding gun shots, though sparing, were amazing. But the looks of the zombies was a little too picture perfect to come across as grisly or frightening and in this film, they don't eat people, they just bite and scramble and clamber around like monkeys.
That's my only problem. 28 Days Later is not a zombie film, so why can zombies run and climb and why do they just bite you and that's it? It takes away the visceral horror of the zombie hordes if they're not even going to eat you.
Zack Snyder's 'Dawn of the Dead' is the complete opposite of George Romero's original, but still manages to entertain greatly as a standalone film. And in a way, I suppose I'm glad that Snyder didn't out-do the original because he was capable even then!