Dawn of the Dead  (2004)

Starring: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber
Director: Zack Snyder

Rating: R

Studio: Universal Pictures

Release Date: 03.19.04

Review Posted: 03.19.04

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara M. Fetters

A New "Dawn" in Terror – Sort Of

The first question that comes to mind when Hollywood decides to remake an admittedly great film is, “why?” After some head scratching, it doesn’t take too long to have the answer to hit you smack dab in the face. The answer, of course, is money, and in Hollywood there is no stronger motivator than the almighty dollar.

Then it comes as no surprise that with the recent success of films like “Resident Evil” and “28 Days Later” Universal Pictures got the notion in their thick skulls to craft a new version of George A. Romero’s seminal zombie classic “Dawn of the Dead.” What is surprising is that somehow, against all conceivable odds, director Zack Snyder and writer James Gunn don’t muck it up.

Not that this 2004 version in anyway stacks up against Romero’s terrific 1978 original. A deft satire on consumerism, this headier sequel to the director’s groundbreaking “Night of the Living Dead” was far ahead of its time in regards to genre instability. Working with a budget not much bigger than the first picture and a cast more suitable to a porno flick, Romero still managed to mine territory similar to that of 70’s heavyweights like Coppola, Scorsese and Malick. Yet he did it while splattering intestinal fluid and grubby pieces of brain matter across the celluloid, making his gloriously gory achievement all the more remarkable.

Don’t expect any deft political or social satire this time around. Gunn and Snyder have no interest in taking any big or important stances or imparting any sort of brand of liberal messaging with their film. Instead, all they’re interested in is scaring the lily white bejesus out of the audience, hitting the ground running with a storyline and scenario that bares little to no resemblance at all to Romero’s shocker.

Smart move. The duo realizes right away the last thing they need to be doing is copying the moves of their source material. This incarnation of “Dawn of the Dead” starts quickly and with no explanation – nurse Ana (Sarah Polley) wakes up to discover darling daughter munching a painfully staggered daddy in the jugular – and then proceeds to move even faster from there. In a beautifully constructed set piece, we get a bird’s eye view through Ana’s windshield to the horrific carnage as she tries to navigate her way to safety. Swerving this way and that while scenes of ghastly inhumanity play itself out, it is a startlingly affective opening, instantly putting me on notice that this might just be a movie worth keeping track of. (This is an amazingly well photographed movie, veteran “Strange Days” cinematographer Matthew F. Leonetti obviously given some freedom to move his camera at his own creepily effective discretion.)

Ana soon hooks up with a gaggle of survivors – stoic police officer Kenneth (Ving Rhames), practical repairman ? (Jake Weber), passionately protective husband Andre (Mekhi Phifer) to name a few – and take refuge in the local shopping mall. At first, mall life is rather serene, but with food sources starting to dwindle and the allure of a non-stop ability to shop losing its luster, the small band decides their best chance at survival is to fight their way down to the docks and take a boat out to a deserted island away from thundering hordes of undead meat eaters.

It’s a long way from the meandering and circular structure of the original, and it bares more than just a passing resemblance to Danny Boyles fantabulous “28 Days Later.” The undead in this movie aren’t the lumbering motor skill-deprived lumbering hulks they were in Romero’s world. Instead they are super-fast, acrobatic killing machines, more interested in ripping people apart with their hands instead of sitting down to devour them with a nice Chianti. They zip across the screen like lighting, humans once infected by the undead seemingly gaining super strength and abounding energy along with that blastedly unfortunate side effect of death.

Needless to say, this isn’t exactly a movie that lends itself to being an actor’s showcase. Be that as it may, Snyder and Gunn still managed to pull in a heavyweight troop of thespian talent. Polley, best known for bracingly independent fare like “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Guinevere,” is the most surprising member of the group. She doesn’t make movies like this or, at least, nothing on her impressively nuanced resume would ever have led one to think she did. Yet, here she is, and the movie is so much better off because of it. Her Ana is wonderful; timid yet resourceful, delicate but tenacious, tough yet still feminine; Polley really putting her all in creating a character all women would be proud to get to know.

Everyone else acquits themselves with equal aplomb. Rhames brings subtle depth to the emotionally stunted Kenneth, while Phifer makes his heartfelt downward spiral into overprotective insanity poignant and believable. I also really liked Michael Kelly, veteran of M. Night Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable” and Milos Forman’s “Man on the Moon.” Playing a wound up security guard who’s a bit too stuck on the rules and his own power, the actor brings a grand sense of sardonic volatility to what could have been nothing more than a throwaway character. He elevates his scenes to a perversely fevered pitch, the movie almost lacking in zest the few moments he’s not around to liven it up.

Lord knows, however, this isn’t a great film by any stretch of the imagination. It’s too thin to really grab hold, and Gunn runs out of ideas about where to ultimately take his characters a good ten minutes or so before the end credits roll. The ending, in particular, is especially a letdown, making me almost regret the emotional involvement I’d placed on the proceedings. But there is wit to be found in the screenplay, and Gunn definitely knows how to build scenes and character in a brief, stylistic flourishes. Not exactly touches you’d expect from the screenwriter of the execrable “Scooby Doo,” but I guess everyone is entitled to a dog or two and Gunn rebounds from that piece of tripe nicely. And there are some great mordant touches (the mall muzak is full of winners like “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” characters play chess using binoculars and erasable reader boards) throughout the picture that can’t help but bring chuckles.

While we’re not talking high art, as remakes go this is an especially decent one. Snyder makes the transition from television commercials to feature films rather effortlessly, and Gunn’s screenplay is economically skillful fleshing out this new world of undead terror. Sure there are lapses in logic and people – as they are often in horror films – that tend to display a degree of intelligence that can only be kindly described as anemic. But so what? People don’t go to this type of a movie for reality; they go for the thrills, chills and blood-splattering gore (something this picture has gallons of).

In relation to the original, this “Dawn” can’t help but pale. As a stand alone grade B zombie holocaust movie, however, this “Dead” has real bite.

Film Rating: êê1/2  (out of 4)

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