Dawn of the Dead 2004 bares little in resemblance to the classic George A Romero sequel to Night of the Living of the Dead. I was honestly very much reserved to seeing a remake to an already classic film.
Taking the film as a stand alone film, imagining that Romero’s trilogy never happened, Dawn of the Dead 2004 (from here on I’ll just call it DotD) is very, very entertaining to watch. The opening scene itself gives a glimpse of what to expect, with a soft tint to the film, making everything seem a little bit duller, washing out any sign of bright colour. It’s all presented as very normal, nothing out of the ordinary, and it’s this initial minimalist approach that works really well, because you already know there are going to be zombies, you’re just waiting for when they appear.
Things turn a bit interesting, almost nearly in the first ten minutes of the film, with the first zombie on screen, and the first death. Technically I guess you could say there have been two deaths, but I would prefer not to get technical about the whole thing. It’s done in a quick, fast paced camera movement, there’s screaming, lots of blood and it works well. As the female lead escapes her apartment, leaving her zombified boyfriend behind and escapes, she watches as the whole local area erupts into a hellish nightmare of people being chased by dead looking people. These are your typical, “Will be there in a minute” zombies that flop along at the same pace as your grandmother, these are lethal and deadly savages that have all the agility and speed of when they were alive, but have a great tolerance damage, except of course to the head. Everyone knows that little trick!
The girl escapes, crashes her car in the ensuing chaos and meets with a cop (Ving Rhames), who then continue on and meet the black kid from ER with an attitude problem, some Italian hottie who’s pregnant and his wife, and that doctor from American Gothic that Lucas Buck put in prison when he tried to kill Lucas. OK, if you don’t know who I’m talking about, don’t worry about it, they’re not that interesting.
DotD 2K4 lacks the tension, suspense and so on, however it makes up for this with numbers
Lead by the cop, the group head for a mall. They decide to fortify themselves there, temporarily. Unfortunately for them, there are zombies in the area, and the just barely make it inside. There are also zombies in the mall, one of which attacks the pregnant lady. Uh oh, can you guess what happens later on? Well, try not to think too hard, it’s not that sort of film. This isn’t Pi, so your brain won’t explode from understanding simple plots.
Some of the group live, some die, some become zombies and all sorts of madness occurs. I liked Rhames’ role in this. Normally he comes across as loud, brash, and king of the hill. Sometimes that seeps through, but overall his character is very much in the background, with everyone else getting the camera treatment too. There doesn’t seem to be a star as such, but the director manages to keep the whole thing even, in an attempt to ensure that no one character looks like they will survive, or die, in order to keep you guessing.
Let’s be honest though, when you watch this film, you immediately get a feel for who lives, and who dies. The plot is very much a predictable affair, with everyone your list being knocked off, in the very way that you guessed. The deaths are well performed, and they’re entertaining to watch. I won’t give the plot away as to who does survive, but it’s pretty bloody obvious and you don’t need a degree in mathematics to work out the probability of odds. I don’t have one, can you tell?
In any case, there were some grating moments, such as the stupid dumb bitch and her obsession for the fucking dog. They find a dog, and she starts to love it. Chip is it’s name, and at one point they have to use the dog to save someone. Well the retarded little dumb bitch only goes to get the fucking truck to retrieve the dog. Only then to be chased by zombies, and calls in for help, like the dumb little bitch she is. Why do we need such irritating characters? It’s like you have to have either the dumb bitch, the dumb dickhead, or the genius twins in every fucking movie. Remember Jurassic Park, “It’s a UNIX system, I know this!” right, how old are you dear? 12? Oh look, pretty 3D graphics! I digress…
Of course, almost ending on the stupidity of the retarded cow could correspond to the loss of losing everyone that she loved, and the dog and her new boyfriend being the only people left. Hilariously though, everyone that dies afterwards is indirectly caused by her bloody rescue, essentially meaning that the dog and she, unlike the poor bastards who saved her, die. Brilliant. Let’s all go save dumb asses and repopulate the world with morons.
I also found the whole pregnancy bit stupid as hell. All that time and no one bothers to check? Ah wait, I said this plot isn’t complex, did I mention it was full of loopholes, but then you expected that right? The whole thing is a bit off, in the sense it’s irrelevant and pointless, and perhaps its inclusion was in order to increase the controversy of how “sick” the film is. It’s not sick, it’s just blatantly poor, and unneeded. Or at least poorly executed.
Equally, however, there are some really good moments, such as the cop’s friendship with the guy across the other building, who happens to own a gun store. Using wipe boards and marker pens, they communicate with each other, having discussions, sharing information or just playing games, such as chess, or “kill the zombie celebrity look-a-like” with Andy’s (the guy in the other building) sniper rifle. It’s a nice touch, and keeps a mostly non speaking character important to the story. Ok you don’t particularly feel any sympathy for anyone in this film, they’re all fairly two dimensional, but the cop/Andy friendship works fairly well.
Scott H. Reiniger makes a guest appearance as “The General” and so does Ken Foree as The “Televangelist”, with Tom Savini almost appearing in a cameo as “The Cop On TV” (I’m making these names up of course). In case you don’t know who they are, they were all in the original Dawn of the Dead, and it’s a nice subtle homage to Romero’s original. Of course there are several other touches which hark back to the original including the request to be shot if turning into a zombie. The failure of the relationship of the guy and girl because one of them is going to turn in to a zombie, and of course the biggest tribute is the fact that it was set in a mall. Sorry, am I giving a way too much here?
Many regard the original Dawn of the Dead to be the best of the three films, for it’s tight action, brilliant tension and suspense, and not knowing when the guy will turn. The raids in the mall, and the intelligence of the characters is much, much greater than most of the idiots in this film. The characters, not the actors, I’m sure they have brains. What DotD 2K4 loses is focus, by having a plethora of characters, you don’t have time to decide who you like and who you don’t.
I would just like to add for reference, Day of the Dead revolutionised zombie film, and is without question the best film in that genre. This is of course my opinion, but the tension, the fear that was instilled by the characters was brilliant. The twist was unexpected and absolutely brutal, and the scene in the cellar with the little girl was sublime.
Taking the film as a stand alone film, imagining that Romero’s trilogy never happened, Dawn of the Dead 2004is very entertaining to watch
In the original there were only three main characters, and you felt something for them, and were kept on your toes as the next scene went to the next scene. It was less predictable, and you were never certain if anyone would make it. The development and the growth of the characters was great to watch. I also liked the fact that the zombies were less intelligent, slower and so on. The new zombies act less like the dead, and more like, hungry cannibals with a penchant for searching out their dinner. The zombies in Romero’s flicks were thick as fuck, but learnt shit inadvertently. The original also had a lot of tongue in cheek humour, and that added to relieve the tension.
The choice of director perhaps requires a mention, as it was a very interesting choice. This I believe is Zack Snyder’s directorial debut, and he does it with some style. Not only has he picked a classic, he has revised it to the point where it can stand on it’s own two feet. I expect big things from this guy in the future, and he’s possibly a director to watch. Seeing as he turned down SWAT for Dawn of the Dead, was a pretty smart choice for his credibility.
DotD 2K4 lacks the tension, suspense and so on, however it makes up for this with numbers. There are an insane amount of zombies in this film, the deaths are also an obvious improvement and some of them are both amusing and spectacular. It’s strange how everyone seem apt at handling weapons, I doubt it was an underlying message of any American can kill with a gun, and more an unexplained fact. Whereas in the original it was a case of the main guys being specialists with weapons.
The film has too much of Hollywood in it, but it almost comes across as good, if not better than the original. But even saying that, it has so little to do with the original, that as a film overall it’s very much an entertaining piece. I despised the credits though, where they mix video footage with the credits and stick in a lot crappy licensed tracks. Well, I have a few of the albums by those artists, but going with licensed tracks took away the terror of what was going on. In fact, I guess I would say you didn’t feel terror, and it felt more by the numbers than anything.
Verdict: Fun and entertaining 2004 revision of a classic Romero piece.