Contains
mild spoilers.
How do you go about
remaking undoubtedly one of, if not the greatest, zombie cinema experiences of
all time and a film that can rightfully say it was there as zombies learnt to
take their shambling formative big screen lurches? Ok there had been zombie films
before, most notably Romero's own 1968 seminal Night of the Living Dead but Dawn of the Dead marked a turning point securing zombies
place in popular consciousness and culture, and cemented much of the zombie canon that we know and love today. This was the task director Zack Snyder set
himself and armed with bigger budget, and access all the latest and greatest
special effects, to cut to the chase, nearly pulls off.
An explosive opening set of scenes sees nurse
Ana (Sarah Polley) escaping from what has turned into a suburban nightmare.
Fleeing from her family home and now homicidal boyfriend, Ana twists and weaves
through rows of identical looking houses on identical looking streets as
friends and neighbours are being ripped open and torn apart. There's no slow
tense thirty minute stack of cards being built up to be knocked down in this
film.
It's not long before
Ana regaining consciousness after a crash teams up with Police Sergeant Kenneth
Hall (Ving Rhames) and the only other genuinely reasonable and level headed
member of the group Michael (Jake Weber). Shortly after they bump into Andre (Mekhi
Phifer) and his pregnant wife, Luda (Inna Korobkina) who are retreating from
the opposite direction. Seemingly cut off from both sides with no place to go
the group follows the original film's lead and makes a bee line for a large
secure looking shopping mall.
Romero's Dead films
always relayed social tensions and anxieties of the time, so whilst set in the
same location as the 70's original, the mordant undercurrents commenting on
societies fear and the absurdities of commercialism is gone, as perhaps it should
be. Without this though the film ends up relying solely on the tried and tested
formula of seeing how a disparate group interacts and copes with surviving the
disintegration of the rules and norms of society amid the constant backdrop of
fear and loss.
Arguing their way past three stubborn security
guards who only grant them entry with big conditions, the disarmed and
imprisoned heroes find themselves facing and I've said this before in other
zombie survival story reviews, the biggest threat to their survival other that
the crazy undead horde knocking on the door, each other.
What makes or breaks
a good apocalyptic zombie tale of survival is the choice of characters and the
dynamics that spin out, and whilst entertaining and engaging those of Dawn of
the Dead are a little cliché and unimaginative. Joined eventually by a rich assortment
of extra personalities who arrive dramatically by lorry including wealthy
bottle swilling yacht owner (Ty Burrell), the ensemble make a good solid
and believable cast and help drive the narrative, but they're all a little
obvious, shallow and forgettable, and there's never much room given for twists or subtlety.
Gone are the
trademark Romero slow shambling blue undead, and what we have are fast and
frenzied and much more lethal looking creatures who have more in common with
Danny Boyle's creations from 28 Days Later, who made their appearance a couple
of years earlier. The undead of Dawn of the Dead are terrifying, deadly and
don't muck about when it comes to hunting down and getting their teeth stuck
into any available human flesh. Unlike Romero's slow ghostly parodies of their
former selves who rarely seem to pose much threat on their own unless they're
in close proximity, there's no room for error with Snyder's blood hungry
runners, who don't get distracted or tired, and always catch up. It's here the
bigger budget and more advanced special effects show there worth; individually
the effects and makeup are as good as you're going to see and there's never a
need to suspend disbelief, but en masse I don't think I've ever seen a zombie
mobs so dense or mind-numbingly immense. In the original you were always aware
of the idea of a vast numbers of zombies swarming round the mall but they were
always spread out in pockets but in this new version Snyder has taken the idea
of horde to a new level with what appears to be thousands of undead all
swollen and packed as one. It's really quite breathtaking.
What Dawn of the
Dead does do well is create very well put together, tightly crafted action
horror film full of suspense, shocks and drama, and whilst possibly being a bit
formulaic like it's characters, it does offer a lot of nice touches throughout
and a few genuine moments of originality. The relation the group has with Andy
(Bruce Bohne) who is stranded alone on the roof of his gun store, across the
zombie-infested parking lot is entertaining and poignant and the climax to the
Andre/Luda scenario is shocking and a sharp reminder that outside the relative
safety of the mall to what depths the world has fallen. There are just not
enough of these moments though and the film treads an all too familiar and safe
path too frequently.
Remakes are
notoriously tricky affairs and remakes of great films that have ingrained
themselves into popular consciousness and the mainstream psyche are impossibly
so. Despite this, what Snyder has actually managed to achieve is remarkable
producing a film that pays acceptable homage to it's origin whilst spins a high
octane constantly enthralling tale in it's own right. The best of the Romero
remakes, Dawn of the Dead is a gruesome action packed spectacle with very few
flaws. It doesn't have the wit, originality or verbosity of the original but
it's a stylish standout testament to the genre. Darker, gorier, more brutal, 7/10.
Steven@WTD.
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