The Two Films Balance One Another Out

Rating: Null/10 (20 March 2004)

When I first heard of this remake, I shook my fists at the heavens and spat defiantly on the ground...cursing Hollywood for making such travesty. However, I saw the trailers and thought I'd give it a try. Surprisingly, I was not disappointed with this remake. It was fast, vicious, and gruesome; Not what I thought it would be (a mindless teenybopper piece of garbage with talentless, pretty people). However, it did lack the the key narrative points that made the original so great. There were too many characters and, as a result, they did not develop into characters that warranted sympathy. Except for Ving Rhames and Sarah Polly, the rest of the cast were dull and annoying, I was happy when they ended up zombie fodder (I especially wanted the kid from Air Bud to be zombie-fied, but disappointingly it did not happen). The mall became a secondary backdrop. The original's mall became a character itself, becoming part of the people inside. While the outside world was going to hell, they had a safe, secure home. Lastly, the entire idea of consumerism equaling mindless zombies was ignored. The good points about the remake: incrediblezombie effects, they were hideous and terrifying; the tense action sequences; the cameos by the cast of the original, the store in the mall named Gaylen Ross; the questionable and
unnerving ending; and some (only just some) of the changes to the story (the zombie infestation happening so quickly, only the bites causing resurrection,etc). In sum, this was not a bad remake. What it lacked, the original had...and what the original lacked, the remake had.