Does it's job, but lacks the attributes of the greats.

Rating: 6/10 (11 April 2011)

For a fair review I will disregard the original completely, and focus only on the 2004 production.
I watched this because I felt like a zombie apocalypse movie.
And that is exactly what I got. The same ageless zombie formula is used in Dawn of the Dead. A group of survivors have holed up in a mall, and desperately try to survive a onslaught of mindless undead cannibals.
My main issue with the movie was that it doesn't really offer anything new. The survivors as in all zombie movies are a politically correct group, including African Americans,a Latino, and ample spread of women. That I have no issue with, producers don't really have a choice than to provide to a broad audience. What I had an issue with was the fact that 30 seconds after meeting each character you can literally predict their chances of survival and time of death. If your watching a horror movie, the most fun thing to do is to go 'shes gonna die next', 'hes got no hope' etc but in Dawn of the Dead, the shallow formula based characters offer 0% chance of a plot twist.
The acting, its okay. I didn't think any particular performance was outstanding, many being particularly weak such as Lindy Booth, whose character loses her whole family, but within days has found herself a love interest (Kevin Zegers, also a fairly poor performance) and an incomprehensible, irrational attachment to a dog.
What brings this movie to a 6 rather than lower was the fantastic and creative friendship through whiteboard diagrams on top of the roof of the mall with Kenneth, the heroic religious policeman (who unfortunately has an unexplained background) and'Andy' the gunstore owner stranded a mile a away. I enjoyed the comedic relief, its a nice break from movies like '28 days later', where you actually need to take a minute for recovery after every scene.
Other than that the movie is completely forgettable, but your attention span will be kept, and it should sate your bloodlust for a fun (and not particularly scary) zombie apocalypse movie.