Snyder's 100-minute remake equals the imaginative, but bloated 126-minute original and surpasses it in several respects

Rating: 9/10 (22 June 2007)

Although Zack Snyder has produced only a handful of television commercials for Chevy Blazer, Budweiser, the NFL Quarterback Club, and BMW, this first-time helmer makes a stunning directorial debut with his super-charged, high-octane, blood-drenched remake of "Dawn of the Dead" (***1/2 out of ****), zombie-master George Romero's low-budget, classic cannibal chiller sequel to his 1968 seminal undead black & white opus "Night of the Living Dead." Hard as it may be to imagine, Snyder's 100-minute remake equals the imaginative, but bloated 126-minute original and surpasses it in several respects. Naturally, Snyder benefits from conspicuous computer-generated special effects (not available to Romeo in 1978), a $28-million budget, and a fabulous cast featuring Ving Rhames, Sarah Polley, Mekhi Phifer, and Jake Weber. The only blunder in scenarist James Gunn's screenplay is the irrational sentimentality one character attaches to a canine. Can anybody forget the scene in "Alien" when Sigourney Weaver put herself in peril to rescue that darn cat? Well, pretty much the same thing occurs here smack in the middle of an adrenaline-laced action scene, and you want to shout back at the screen to stop such stupidity. Such is the visceral power of this entertaining but ghoulish "Dawn of the Dead" remake. Compared with the shuffle-footed zombies of Romero's trilogy, Snyder's zombies rush their victims headlong like the defensive line of the Green Bay Packers on first and goal. Despite this unfortunate animal-lover's cliché, Snyder and Gunn have churned out one of the more riveting zombie movies in years. Forget those recent, reanimated efforts in the same direction by Paul Anderson's "Resident Evil" and Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later." Unlike its prestigious, path-breaking predecessor, who belongs to the independent, non-Hollywood film category, Snyder's mainstream Tinseltown remake fondly cherishes many of Romero's ideas when it isn't taking a different track. A group of unglamorous but heroic characters and Matthew F. Leonetti's grainy, stark widescreen photography give this macabre but mindless melodrama a hypnotic, hair-raising presence punctuated with bouts of satire.
Whereas the original "Dawn" opened with a S.W.A.T team blowing zombies away before the heroes flew away in a helicopter to the comparative safety of a Pennsylvania shopping mall, the hyperactive remake takes place in a Wisconsin mall. As the story unfolds, an overworked nurse, Ana (Sarah Polley of "Go"), gets off work and heads home to her hubby for sex in the shower. During her hospital shift, she saw and heard about patients with mysterious bite wounds, but she missed all the special bulletins about a developing epidemic where these people die and come back to life as zombies. No, these aren't the traditional voodoo zombies from movies like "White Zombie" (1932) or "Plague of the Zombies" (1966). Instead, these undead dudes arise from an inexplicable virus or disease. In Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," newscasters speculated that a contaminated satellite probe back from space resurrected the dead. Nobody knows for sure in this "Dawn" remake, and when Ana and her husband awaken the following morning to find her preteen daughter standing in their doorway with blood stains on her nightie, part of her face eaten away and a powerful urge to gnaw human flesh. She attacks her dad, tears a hole in his throat, and blood flies everywhere. A terrified Ana tries to stem the fountain of blood. Suddenly, her husband's eyes take on a dull glow and he goes after her. She escapes, jumps into her car, and careens off into the dawn. Chaos rules everywhere. Explosions erupt; smoke billows in clouds, and berserk gore-smeared corpses chomp away at anybody. Eventually, Ana hooks up with a police sergeant, Kenneth (Ving Rhames of "Pulp Fiction), a husband, Andre (Mekhi Phifer of "Honey"), his wife Luda (Inna Korobkina of "The Ladies Man") and a salesman Michael (Jake Webber of "Meet Joe Black") and they take refuge in the Crossroads Mall. Initially, they run afoul of three trigger-happy security guards: CJ (Michael Kelly of "Unbreakable"), Terry (Kevin Zegers of "Wrong Turn"), and Bart (Michael Barry of "Detroit Rock City "). Predictably, these guys aren't happy to see them. They form an uneasy alliance and resolve their differences when thousands of zombies besiege them in the mall. No, a biker gang doesn't show up as in the original "Dawn." Instead, a truckload of other refugees shows up. Before the TV stations sign off, a preacher (Ken Foree of the original "Dawn") utters the line made famous in Romero's "Dawn": "When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth." Unlike the original,too, the remake gives our heroes another, more interesting way out of their predicament that recalls the climax in the Clint Eastwood epic "The Gauntlet."
Shrewdly, Zack Snyder alternates scares with satire. Like the original, the heroes speculate that the zombies are flocking to the mall because it played a dominant role in their lives. Alas, this clever concept made the original "Dawn" a witty satire on the foibles of humanity. Synder's "Dawn" doesn't capitalize on it as much as Romeo's "Dawn." Instead, Snyder focuses on the alliance the occupants make before they break out and make a run for it. One scene that stands out involves the husband and wife. She gets bitten, but her husband hides her from the others. She turns into a hideous zombie and gives birth to a zombie baby. Mind you, if you like to dream sweet dreams, watching this "Dawn" is going to be a nightmare for you. There's blood, gore, and more, but none of these zombies feast on body parts with the oozing alacrity that Romeo's zombies did. While Romeo generated suspense in his version, Snyder gives us wall-to-wall suspense that will have you gnawing your fingers to the quick. Make-up artist Tom Savini, who handled the blood and gore in the original "Dawn," has a cameo as a sheriff. Watching Zach Snyder's "Dawn of the Dead" is like taking a bullet in the head.