Cancell the Academy Awards, we have a winner!

Rating: 7/10 (3 September 2004)

The action settles in an abandoned shopping mall, where Anna, a police officer named Kenneth and a few other survivors - gun-toting Andre, his pregnant girlfriend Luda and mysterious Mike. In the mall they are confronted by the local security, who suddenly have delusions of power. The group winds up locked in a home furnishings store before turning tables on the rent-a-cops. Setting up shop in the mall, they have a little fun, playing basketball and working out with gear from the sports store.
Most comical is Ken forming a bond with a gun store owner across the street named Andy, with the two communicating by writing on erasable message boards. They play chess and take pot shots at the horde of zombies below them for laughs. In a true sign of a sick mind at work, there's a montage of mayhem done to a lounge band covering The Disturbed's "The Sickness." Snyder is crazy, and I love it.
The strongest character studies in the film show how people react under pressure as society collapses. We see it in the rent-a-cops trying to display power they don't really have, and in the development of Michael, who shows strength of character despite a less-than-impressive background.
Like many, I found myself anxious about the news that Dawn was being remade. I wasn't particularly worried about the choice of director or screenwriter (like some outspoken folks). I was more concerned with the "uber-stupid-teenification" that seems to haunt most of the decent ideas that surface in cinema nowadays - particularly in horror films.
That said, there were a couple instances in the new Dawn that I could've lived without. But they were easily forgotten amidst the ruthless spectacle of these very determined survivors in a shopping mall.Romero fans and newcomers alike should be pleased. The violence is huge, And the gore, sweesh, it was very gory at times. It was simply very well done.And for all of you people who are upset over the running zombies, just get over it already.
I'm a big fan of the original. "But the bottom line is this: lumbering, staggering, slow-moving zombies just aren't scary anymore folks. They scare your grandma, but not us anymore. It's been almost 30 years. We have to be ... "re-shocked" into believing in the bleak, almost unbearable truth that anyone alive during the Dawn of the Dead apocalypse...is in deep doodoo."
***/*****