Not Romero's vision, but it's not supposed to be

Rating: 8/10 (12 December 2004)

I must preface this by saying that I am a fan of the original (1978) version of the movie (though to this day, I can't understand the appeal of the original "Night of the Living..."). Unlike many fans of the original, however, I found this version more than satisfactory. It's been my position for eons that if someone is going to do a remake of a classic film, they need to bring something new to the table -- and that's exactly what the re-makers of "Dawn of the Dead" have done. The original went for the satire of consumerism, while this one plays out merely for character pathos and scares. While satire seemed to work for the Romero version (though it ultimately collapsed under its own weight with a silly biker invasion), it simply couldn't work today... at least not as the semi-spoof that the original tried to be.
This far-less-intimate version follows the exploits of a gang of people who wind up taking refuge in a shopping mall, whilst hoards of zombies congregate outside of the walls (in the original, the zombies were loose within the mall itself). These zombies are from the "28 Days Later" school of zombies -- they move swiftly and are relentless in their hunger for human flesh. While the characters are secondary to the action (particularly in the version I saw at the theatre), all of the actors seem to bring a flair to the characters that they portray. And the ending, which ultimately plays out through the ending credits, is superior to the biker-invasion-cum-escape that Romero left us with in the original version.
Minor spoilers for the original: The Romero version featured some scenes that I really miss in this version -- including the infamous screwdriver-through-the-head (though homage was paid with the mallet-through-the-head) and a slide down the the railing of the escalator, but the original was its own entity. Nothing like it had existed before it... and nothing ever will again.
Though this version doesn't keep the tight photography and innovative camera angles used in the first version (with many scenes that have been endlessly imitated), it does its best to deliver scares for a new generation. What more can you ask of a remake?