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"When there's no more room in Hell, the dead shall walk the Earth" - or so the saying goes. How then does Zack Snyder, director and co writer of Dawn of the Dead 2004 walk in the shoes of George Romero?
Mirroring the original 1978 Dawn of the Dead the movie starts at breakneck speed. Not halting for any detailed character or plot history, before we know it our leading lady Anna (Sarah Polley) is faced with a rampaging 12 year old sinking her teeth into her partner's neck. She flees after her partner becomes infected with this back to life virus. On escaping she finds that all Hell literally has broken loose. The city is under siege by the blood lusty reanimated recently deceased. A prospect I'm sure most would find rather baffling and slightly disturbing. Roll opening credits whilst seeing a montage of social breakdown across the globe superbly held together by The Man in Black singing "The Man Comes Around".
Anna on her escape venturing towards nowhere in particular fortunately stumbles upon Kenneth (Ving Rhames) a policeman, Michael (Jake Weber) a salesman, Luda (Inna Korobknia) a pregnant Russian lady and Adre (Mekhi Phifer) her partner. Being close to a local shopping mall they decide it's probably best to hang out there, get their bearings and decide what to do next. Greeting them at the mall is a trio of security guards who have already marked this territory as their own and they're not too keen on sharing. After 8 more people try and enter the mall our mutinous heroes, with the help of one reasonable guard, overpower the remaining two throwing them into the brig to ponder the error of their ways.
Realising that the mall will never be their final resting place, and the fact that one of the new incumbents owns a boat, they hatch a plan to leave the mall, drive through the undead early bargain hunters, find the boat sail off into the sunset and live happily ever after on one of the islands located close offshore. So the movie continues apace stocking up supplies, converting buses into Mad Max road wagons for the journey ahead... waiting for the time to leave.
Zack is trying to fill some very large shoes here. Fans and critics alike commonly regard Romero's Dead legacy to be a masterpiece of modern horror cinema. For the first 30 minutes or so he succeeds, during the opening mayhem whilst Anna is trying to escape fleeing down the highway as all around her descends further into chaos you start thinking... "Hey not bad this guy could actually pull this off". In the end though he doesn't quite make it. A few things for me made the original; obviously the biting satirical wit of modern American society, the close relationship that emerges between the 4 main characters and the zombies themselves. With the updated 2004 edition we get none of this.
Zack, more accustomed prior to this of directing adverts than full length feature films, certainly bows his head to the original on a few occasions, once having a CGI version of the original 1978 helicopter appear into view, another naming one of the shops in the mall after the actress who played Francine in the original. Zack is obviously aware of the formers merit, it is a shame then that during this early stage in his career he was not quite up to the task.
In 2004 there are far too many characters for us to focus on them all. With the original all 4 of the main characters were equally important, all captured your attention for different reasons. In 2004 the introduction of substantially more characters dilutes this somewhat. In 1978 we have 4 characters against hundreds of mall zombies, in 2004 we ultimately have 16 characters against 4 mall zombies. Don't get me wrong the characters Zack brings to the screen are in their own right interesting enough, the nurse, the cop, the playboy, militant security guard, the dotting father, doting husband... and on and on. There is just far too little screen time for them all to be fully explored and at the end of the day you just end up wondering which one's going to make it as zombie sushi and who will flee to be al-dente another day.
Comedy exists here to a certain degree but in no way are we presented the insightful wit of the original. Why was the original shot in a mall? To show the new American landscape which the society at the time was gladly marching towards - rampant consumerism. Why is this shot in a mall? Because the original was and for me Zack lost it right here. He should have gone for a different location, stamping his own authority on the film, perhaps even trying to say something about America's current society, their needs and desires. As I say there is comedy in the film and it will bring the odd smile to your foe. Celebrity Shoot Out will never be the same again though.
Lastly the zombies. In the original I quite liked these. For me they were an additional character in the movie. Lumbering with their own sense of purpose we came to like the Krishna, the Nurse, the Fat Man. In 2004, zombies have obviously had a bit of a make over. Sporting go faster stripes no longer can your granny and her Zimmer frame outrun them! No longer could you stand idly by and custard pie them for your own amusement. Here they hunt you down with astonishing speed but they lack the humanity of the originals. They are simply canon fodder for the headshots and camera.
So really it has to be 4 - 0 to the original, Story, Characters, Comedy and Zombies. Dawn of the Dead 2004 is certainly worth another watch in this updated version but once done, and given the choice, I feel you'll always be going back to the original for re-viewing pleasure. So I'll leave you with a quote from Revelation, used by Johnny Cash in his song at the start... "And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, And I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death. And Hell followed with him."
Mirroring the original 1978 Dawn of the Dead the movie starts at breakneck speed. Not halting for any detailed character or plot history, before we know it our leading lady Anna (Sarah Polley) is faced with a rampaging 12 year old sinking her teeth into her partner's neck. She flees after her partner becomes infected with this back to life virus. On escaping she finds that all Hell literally has broken loose. The city is under siege by the blood lusty reanimated recently deceased. A prospect I'm sure most would find rather baffling and slightly disturbing. Roll opening credits whilst seeing a montage of social breakdown across the globe superbly held together by The Man in Black singing "The Man Comes Around".
Anna on her escape venturing towards nowhere in particular fortunately stumbles upon Kenneth (Ving Rhames) a policeman, Michael (Jake Weber) a salesman, Luda (Inna Korobknia) a pregnant Russian lady and Adre (Mekhi Phifer) her partner. Being close to a local shopping mall they decide it's probably best to hang out there, get their bearings and decide what to do next. Greeting them at the mall is a trio of security guards who have already marked this territory as their own and they're not too keen on sharing. After 8 more people try and enter the mall our mutinous heroes, with the help of one reasonable guard, overpower the remaining two throwing them into the brig to ponder the error of their ways.
Realising that the mall will never be their final resting place, and the fact that one of the new incumbents owns a boat, they hatch a plan to leave the mall, drive through the undead early bargain hunters, find the boat sail off into the sunset and live happily ever after on one of the islands located close offshore. So the movie continues apace stocking up supplies, converting buses into Mad Max road wagons for the journey ahead... waiting for the time to leave.
Zack is trying to fill some very large shoes here. Fans and critics alike commonly regard Romero's Dead legacy to be a masterpiece of modern horror cinema. For the first 30 minutes or so he succeeds, during the opening mayhem whilst Anna is trying to escape fleeing down the highway as all around her descends further into chaos you start thinking... "Hey not bad this guy could actually pull this off". In the end though he doesn't quite make it. A few things for me made the original; obviously the biting satirical wit of modern American society, the close relationship that emerges between the 4 main characters and the zombies themselves. With the updated 2004 edition we get none of this.
Zack, more accustomed prior to this of directing adverts than full length feature films, certainly bows his head to the original on a few occasions, once having a CGI version of the original 1978 helicopter appear into view, another naming one of the shops in the mall after the actress who played Francine in the original. Zack is obviously aware of the formers merit, it is a shame then that during this early stage in his career he was not quite up to the task.
In 2004 there are far too many characters for us to focus on them all. With the original all 4 of the main characters were equally important, all captured your attention for different reasons. In 2004 the introduction of substantially more characters dilutes this somewhat. In 1978 we have 4 characters against hundreds of mall zombies, in 2004 we ultimately have 16 characters against 4 mall zombies. Don't get me wrong the characters Zack brings to the screen are in their own right interesting enough, the nurse, the cop, the playboy, militant security guard, the dotting father, doting husband... and on and on. There is just far too little screen time for them all to be fully explored and at the end of the day you just end up wondering which one's going to make it as zombie sushi and who will flee to be al-dente another day.
Comedy exists here to a certain degree but in no way are we presented the insightful wit of the original. Why was the original shot in a mall? To show the new American landscape which the society at the time was gladly marching towards - rampant consumerism. Why is this shot in a mall? Because the original was and for me Zack lost it right here. He should have gone for a different location, stamping his own authority on the film, perhaps even trying to say something about America's current society, their needs and desires. As I say there is comedy in the film and it will bring the odd smile to your foe. Celebrity Shoot Out will never be the same again though.
Lastly the zombies. In the original I quite liked these. For me they were an additional character in the movie. Lumbering with their own sense of purpose we came to like the Krishna, the Nurse, the Fat Man. In 2004, zombies have obviously had a bit of a make over. Sporting go faster stripes no longer can your granny and her Zimmer frame outrun them! No longer could you stand idly by and custard pie them for your own amusement. Here they hunt you down with astonishing speed but they lack the humanity of the originals. They are simply canon fodder for the headshots and camera.
So really it has to be 4 - 0 to the original, Story, Characters, Comedy and Zombies. Dawn of the Dead 2004 is certainly worth another watch in this updated version but once done, and given the choice, I feel you'll always be going back to the original for re-viewing pleasure. So I'll leave you with a quote from Revelation, used by Johnny Cash in his song at the start... "And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, And I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death. And Hell followed with him."
http://avplay.avforums.com/?showtitlereview=9005
Should always mention your sources, unless you're Keith Hurst, of course.
Should always mention your sources, unless you're Keith Hurst, of course.
"When there's no more room in Hell, the dead shall walk the Earth" - or so the saying goes. How then does Zack Snyder, director and co writer of Dawn of the Dead 2004 walk in the shoes of George Romero?
Mirroring the original 1978 Dawn of the Dead the movie starts at breakneck speed. Not halting for any detailed character or plot history, before we know it our leading lady Anna (Sarah Polley) is faced with a rampaging 12 year old sinking her teeth into her partner's neck. She flees after her partner becomes infected with this back to life virus. On escaping she finds that all Hell literally has broken loose. The city is under siege by the blood lusty reanimated recently deceased. A prospect I'm sure most would find rather baffling and slightly disturbing. Roll opening credits whilst seeing a montage of social breakdown across the globe superbly held together by The Man in Black singing "The Man Comes Around".
Anna on her escape venturing towards nowhere in particular fortunately stumbles upon Kenneth (Ving Rhames) a policeman, Michael (Jake Weber) a salesman, Luda (Inna Korobknia) a pregnant Russian lady and Adre (Mekhi Phifer) her partner. Being close to a local shopping mall they decide it's probably best to hang out there, get their bearings and decide what to do next. Greeting them at the mall is a trio of security guards who have already marked this territory as their own and they're not too keen on sharing. After 8 more people try and enter the mall our mutinous heroes, with the help of one reasonable guard, overpower the remaining two throwing them into the brig to ponder the error of their ways.
Realising that the mall will never be their final resting place, and the fact that one of the new incumbents owns a boat, they hatch a plan to leave the mall, drive through the undead early bargain hunters, find the boat sail off into the sunset and live happily ever after on one of the islands located close offshore. So the movie continues apace stocking up supplies, converting buses into Mad Max road wagons for the journey ahead... waiting for the time to leave.
Zack is trying to fill some very large shoes here. Fans and critics alike commonly regard Romero's Dead legacy to be a masterpiece of modern horror cinema. For the first 30 minutes or so he succeeds, during the opening mayhem whilst Anna is trying to escape fleeing down the highway as all around her descends further into chaos you start thinking... "Hey not bad this guy could actually pull this off". In the end though he doesn't quite make it. A few things for me made the original; obviously the biting satirical wit of modern American society, the close relationship that emerges between the 4 main characters and the zombies themselves. With the updated 2004 edition we get none of this.
Zack, more accustomed prior to this of directing adverts than full length feature films, certainly bows his head to the original on a few occasions, once having a CGI version of the original 1978 helicopter appear into view, another naming one of the shops in the mall after the actress who played Francine in the original. Zack is obviously aware of the formers merit, it is a shame then that during this early stage in his career he was not quite up to the task.
In 2004 there are far too many characters for us to focus on them all. With the original all 4 of the main characters were equally important, all captured your attention for different reasons. In 2004 the introduction of substantially more characters dilutes this somewhat. In 1978 we have 4 characters against hundreds of mall zombies, in 2004 we ultimately have 16 characters against 4 mall zombies. Don't get me wrong the characters Zack brings to the screen are in their own right interesting enough, the nurse, the cop, the playboy, militant security guard, the dotting father, doting husband... and on and on. There is just far too little screen time for them all to be fully explored and at the end of the day you just end up wondering which one's going to make it as zombie sushi and who will flee to be al-dente another day.
Comedy exists here to a certain degree but in no way are we presented the insightful wit of the original. Why was the original shot in a mall? To show the new American landscape which the society at the time was gladly marching towards - rampant consumerism. Why is this shot in a mall? Because the original was and for me Zack lost it right here. He should have gone for a different location, stamping his own authority on the film, perhaps even trying to say something about America's current society, their needs and desires. As I say there is comedy in the film and it will bring the odd smile to your foe. Celebrity Shoot Out will never be the same again though.
Lastly the zombies. In the original I quite liked these. For me they were an additional character in the movie. Lumbering with their own sense of purpose we came to like the Krishna, the Nurse, the Fat Man. In 2004, zombies have obviously had a bit of a make over. Sporting go faster stripes no longer can your granny and her Zimmer frame outrun them! No longer could you stand idly by and custard pie them for your own amusement. Here they hunt you down with astonishing speed but they lack the humanity of the originals. They are simply canon fodder for the headshots and camera.
So really it has to be 4 - 0 to the original, Story, Characters, Comedy and Zombies. Dawn of the Dead 2004 is certainly worth another watch in this updated version but once done, and given the choice, I feel you'll always be going back to the original for re-viewing pleasure. So I'll leave you with a quote from Revelation, used by Johnny Cash in his song at the start... "And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, And I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death. And Hell followed with him."
Mirroring the original 1978 Dawn of the Dead the movie starts at breakneck speed. Not halting for any detailed character or plot history, before we know it our leading lady Anna (Sarah Polley) is faced with a rampaging 12 year old sinking her teeth into her partner's neck. She flees after her partner becomes infected with this back to life virus. On escaping she finds that all Hell literally has broken loose. The city is under siege by the blood lusty reanimated recently deceased. A prospect I'm sure most would find rather baffling and slightly disturbing. Roll opening credits whilst seeing a montage of social breakdown across the globe superbly held together by The Man in Black singing "The Man Comes Around".
Anna on her escape venturing towards nowhere in particular fortunately stumbles upon Kenneth (Ving Rhames) a policeman, Michael (Jake Weber) a salesman, Luda (Inna Korobknia) a pregnant Russian lady and Adre (Mekhi Phifer) her partner. Being close to a local shopping mall they decide it's probably best to hang out there, get their bearings and decide what to do next. Greeting them at the mall is a trio of security guards who have already marked this territory as their own and they're not too keen on sharing. After 8 more people try and enter the mall our mutinous heroes, with the help of one reasonable guard, overpower the remaining two throwing them into the brig to ponder the error of their ways.
Realising that the mall will never be their final resting place, and the fact that one of the new incumbents owns a boat, they hatch a plan to leave the mall, drive through the undead early bargain hunters, find the boat sail off into the sunset and live happily ever after on one of the islands located close offshore. So the movie continues apace stocking up supplies, converting buses into Mad Max road wagons for the journey ahead... waiting for the time to leave.
Zack is trying to fill some very large shoes here. Fans and critics alike commonly regard Romero's Dead legacy to be a masterpiece of modern horror cinema. For the first 30 minutes or so he succeeds, during the opening mayhem whilst Anna is trying to escape fleeing down the highway as all around her descends further into chaos you start thinking... "Hey not bad this guy could actually pull this off". In the end though he doesn't quite make it. A few things for me made the original; obviously the biting satirical wit of modern American society, the close relationship that emerges between the 4 main characters and the zombies themselves. With the updated 2004 edition we get none of this.
Zack, more accustomed prior to this of directing adverts than full length feature films, certainly bows his head to the original on a few occasions, once having a CGI version of the original 1978 helicopter appear into view, another naming one of the shops in the mall after the actress who played Francine in the original. Zack is obviously aware of the formers merit, it is a shame then that during this early stage in his career he was not quite up to the task.
In 2004 there are far too many characters for us to focus on them all. With the original all 4 of the main characters were equally important, all captured your attention for different reasons. In 2004 the introduction of substantially more characters dilutes this somewhat. In 1978 we have 4 characters against hundreds of mall zombies, in 2004 we ultimately have 16 characters against 4 mall zombies. Don't get me wrong the characters Zack brings to the screen are in their own right interesting enough, the nurse, the cop, the playboy, militant security guard, the dotting father, doting husband... and on and on. There is just far too little screen time for them all to be fully explored and at the end of the day you just end up wondering which one's going to make it as zombie sushi and who will flee to be al-dente another day.
Comedy exists here to a certain degree but in no way are we presented the insightful wit of the original. Why was the original shot in a mall? To show the new American landscape which the society at the time was gladly marching towards - rampant consumerism. Why is this shot in a mall? Because the original was and for me Zack lost it right here. He should have gone for a different location, stamping his own authority on the film, perhaps even trying to say something about America's current society, their needs and desires. As I say there is comedy in the film and it will bring the odd smile to your foe. Celebrity Shoot Out will never be the same again though.
Lastly the zombies. In the original I quite liked these. For me they were an additional character in the movie. Lumbering with their own sense of purpose we came to like the Krishna, the Nurse, the Fat Man. In 2004, zombies have obviously had a bit of a make over. Sporting go faster stripes no longer can your granny and her Zimmer frame outrun them! No longer could you stand idly by and custard pie them for your own amusement. Here they hunt you down with astonishing speed but they lack the humanity of the originals. They are simply canon fodder for the headshots and camera.
So really it has to be 4 - 0 to the original, Story, Characters, Comedy and Zombies. Dawn of the Dead 2004 is certainly worth another watch in this updated version but once done, and given the choice, I feel you'll always be going back to the original for re-viewing pleasure. So I'll leave you with a quote from Revelation, used by Johnny Cash in his song at the start... "And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, And I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death. And Hell followed with him."