(This review adapted from my post to the IMdB DotD04 BB, with DVD-release emendations in [brackets])

PLENTY OF SPOILERS AHEAD...

In Dawn of the Dead (2004) Director Zack Snyder has crafted an interesting, though flawed, thrill ride of a film that cribs the scenario---a plague of the reborn dead intent upon devouring the living---and the shopping mall setting of George A. Romero's classic Dawn of the Dead (1978), and precious little else.

Purist fans of the original may well be offended, but this reworking of Romero's consumerist satire is entertaining, if somewhat skimpy on substance; Snyder and screenwriter, James Gunn, have twisted elements of Romero's story to suit the needs of a revved-up, post-millennial audience. We get a child zombie, but this time right up front and gruesomely disfigured to boot. We get a "Steve" to love to hate, and to cheer when he gets his, but he's not a main character. We get the mall---else why even dare use the title?---but it's not so much a haven to be secured as it is an insecure prison. There's no biker gang breaking in; our heroes are instead forced to break out. The zombies (which, of course, are never referred to as such) are as hyper as Mikey on four bowls of Life cereal, but when we see them clearly, they're just as appropriately gnarly-looking and scary as their cousins doing the Romero shuffle. We get a healthy dose of homage, including a "Gaylen Ross" storefront and a cgi-flyby of the WGON helicopter. We get Max Headroom as a guy who looks like the original Roger and dies like him as well, but without the "I'm going to try...not to come back!" plus we get the original Roger as a haggard-looking general, Ken Foree reworking his classic tagline, "When there's no more room in hell..." and Tom Savini chewing some scenery as a frazzled sheriff. We get a spectacular exploding head, but it pops near the end instead of the beginning of the film, and it happens to someone the audience likes. We get a somewhat unsettling "happy" ending, which is then tagged with a deliberately confusing "unhappy" postscript mixed into the credit reel.

What we don't get is much in the way of character development, and next to nothing of Romero's wry social commentary, unless one takes the underlying nihilism of the film to be thoughtful insight. Snyder's inspired pre-title sequence (and the title reel is pretty damn nice, too!) paints an uncompromising nightmare of civil disorder and a failure of authority on all levels to deal with crisis. Medical personnel are more dangerous than useful: a doctor shows more interest in golf than an unusual bite case, an ambulance runs down Ana's neighbor. Bus drivers are potential carjackers, the first cop Ana meets points a shotgun in her face, and later on, security guards offer anything but. The military is overwhelmed by the undead. Government tucks its tail into a helicopter and runs, while the broadcast media seem to collapse overnight. Our band of survivors is left to its own devices, and the film's zeitgeist is very much every man for himself. Or as Kenneth says, "Fuck y'all."

The film leaves more questions open than it grudgingly answers. Some are immaterial (how did the zombie plague originate?), some are niggling irritations (why wasn't Vivian as aggressive as the other zombies? Why do zombies possess the vocal cords of wild animals?), and some are whimsical (why kill a baby zombie; what's it going to do, gum you to death?), but some are crucial to the internal logic of the story.

How did Andy die and do the zombie two-step so damn fast? [This is explained in the director's cut DVD release in a short �home-video� as a combination of weakness from starvation and bad luck] Why did Luda take so long to die from her wound, compared to the fat lady in the wheelbarrow? Why did the bite victims in Ana's hospital take so long? Where were the expected hordes of zombie children and teenagers? Where were all the other suddenly masterless dogs, and why wouldn't zombies eat them? How did Ana and her husband manage to remain blissfully unaware of the growing chaos outside their house? Big, big question: why, once they were secure within the cornucopia of the mall, didn't our protagonists fully exploit those resources? Why didn't they dress protectively in leather jackets, multiple layers of clothing, makeshift armor, helmets? Why didn't they improvise more weapons, especially flammable ones? Why didn't they scrounge up a short wave radio, or try to access the Internet? [Andy apparently websurfs in his home video, but this avenue is quickly squelched] Why didn't Snyder and Gunn put a little more thought into their story?

I like my horror fantasies to have a consistent framework. If they don't, they leak. They fade.

Fast zombies are a chilling variation, but they defy the laws of physiology for the sake of frenetic filmmaking. Much has been made of the obvious influence of 28 Days Later, but those weren't zombies per se; they were living humans infected with "Rage." Snyder and Gunn have catered to the eMpTyV, short-attention-span crowd and jazzed-up Romero's much more disturbing shamblers, if not for the sake of hectic-editting junkies, then as justification for the amazingly swift spread of the zombie infestation. One can only guess how Andy barricaded his gun store so quickly. [Even the home video passes over this] Fast zombies (or "zoombies," as one inspired IMdB BB writer dubbed them) surely expend more energy than slow ones, whether the infection slows decay of the body or not is beside the point. Flesh and bone breaks down fast without refueling, and corpses don't have much in the way of fresh oxygen and nutrients. Eyes cloud when fluids dry up. Joints stiffen; internal organs shrivel. Suspension of disbelief falls by the wayside.

Despite its plot flaws and questionable character development [some of which is mended to varying degrees of success in the DVD director's cut], I still enjoyed this reworking of Romero's seminal classic. Some of the visual effects were less than convincing---did anyone else notice zombies running heedlessly into the flaming marina in that bird's-eye shot after C.J. blew himself up?---but the make-up was extraordinarily effective, the acting was good-to-excellent across the board, the overall apocalyptic vision was well-realized, and the storytelling was well-paced, if naggingly inconsistent and problematic. I enjoyed revisiting the delicious horrors of zombie invasion [and will periodically continue to do so again via the aforementioned DVD], but---and it may simply be because I am now a quarter century older and that much more jaded---Dawn'04 didn't give me nightmares like the original did. If I had to pick one of the two for a desert island DVD collection, it would have to be Romero's inspired, shoestring-budget masterpiece over Snyder's pricier, workmanlike debut any day of the dead, pun fully intended. Still, I give Dawn'04 a 6 out of 10; it's nearly as frenetic as the zombies with which it's populated, but pretty much as empty-headed and thoughtless as well.

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