Could have been REALLY good....

Rating: 6/10 (28 January 2006)

Just for the record, I'm a die-hard Romero fan. I didn't mind the running zombies one bit...I thought the opening was first-rate, as well as the title sequence/montage. The zombie baby was OUTSTANDING, and was something I'd pondered and debated with fellow Romero fans for years. Even the VERY end of the movie (during the closing credits) was rather disturbing. I'm glad they removed the proposed scene w/the "zombie dogs" (and truth be told, I'm equally happy that Romero removed the proposed "zombie rats" sequence out of LOTD). The makeup was terrific, and the gore/head-shot effects were top-notch.
I don't know a thing about making movies. But I can get a feel for good dialog writing as opposed to not-so-good dialog writing. I gave the movie a 6/10 solely due to the fact that most of the dialog was TERRIBLE. This was mainly the case when everyone got to the mall, and seemed to continue from there on out. Even despite CJ's redemption toward the end which makes him likable, he has some of the WORST and corny lines. Everyone (as seems to be the case in mainstream horror movies) was written to try to act and talk "too cool," and at times did not behave at all the way that people would behave (even in a melodramatic way) if this situation were to actually happen.
Maybe it's just that I'm not sure whether the creators were going for a serious or satirical zombie movie. I don't think a good balance is achieved here. The opening is EXTREMELY serious, and then 45 minutes later, Kenneth and Andy are shooting celebrity look-alike zombies from the rooftop of the mall and laughing; Steve's getting some down below, and two twenty-somethings are having a relationship blossom by laughing and having fun after they just shot the girl's father an hour earlier (a VERY serious and sad scene). It just goes from WAY light-hearted to WAY serious too many times, IMHO.
Overall this is a good movie, and I do watch it every so often. (6/10)