Dawn of the Dead (2004) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

We all think we can handle life as we know it, but that changes when the unexpected occurs
.

PLOT


Inspired by George Romero’s 1979 original film, 2004’s Dawn of the Dead is a remake with a much different narrative in comparison. The film takes place in Milwaukee and follows a nurse named Ana witness a zombie outbreak occur in her very eyes. She quickly leaves her suburban neighborhood when her husband gets turned by a child neighbor that was also zombified. When she crashes into a tree, she later wakes up and joins other survivors to a nearby mall for shelter. Her new group includes: police sergeant Kenneth, electronic salesman Michael, petty criminal Andre and his pregnant wife Luda (Inna Korobkina). At the mall are three security guards who force them to surrender their weapons to seek refuge: CJ, Terry & Bart. They only do so after Luda survives a scratch from another guard that had been zombified. Across the parking lot is another survivor named Andy (Bruce Bohne) who’s stuck in his own gun store. The group try SOSing a helicopter passing by, but to no avail. The next day, more survivors arrive via delivery truck and CJ & Bart gets overruled for wanting to turn them away. The new group includes: Steve, Norma (Jayne Eastwood), Tucker (Boyd Banks), Monica (Kim Poirier), Glen (RD Reid), Frank (Matt Frewer) and his daughter Nicole (Lindy Booth). Another woman is wheeled inside for being too ill to walk, but she soon dies upon reanimation and all deduce infection comes from being bitten. Frank pitches to be isolated when he finds himself to be bitten as well, but Kenneth shoots him too. Andre would have Luda to hide due to her scratch. When time passes, Kenneth would be long distance friends with Andy by communicating via whiteboards. Also, the likes of Ana & Michael and Nicole & Terry would would spark romance with one another. When the power goes out though, CJ & Bart join Kenneth & Michael to the parking garage to activate the generator. This does lead to them finding a dog they name Chips, but breathes a herd of zombies. When Bart gets bit, the others kill the rest by setting them ablaze. When Norma checks on Luda, she finds her to officially turn and give birth to her zombie baby. Wanting to protect everyone else, she shoots Luda but also dies in a crossfire involving herself and Andre. When Ana investigates the shots fired, she kills the baby. With resources losing rapidly, they agree to reach the local marina and board Steve’s yacht to travel to a Lake Michigan island, hoping for it to be zombie-free. Having reinforced the shuttle buses to strengthen their escape, Kenneth sends Chips to Andy’s store strapped with supplies. The dog gets in the store, but it gets followed inside by zombies. Nicole goes to the store on her own to save Chips, resulting in the rest of the group to enter through the sewers to save her. With Andy getting turned as well, they kill him before saving her. Tucker would break his legs upon grabbing ammunition, resulting in CJ to mercy kill him. With the front doors locked, they quickly move forward with their evacuation plan. As they drive through the horde, Glen accidentally loses control of chainsaw that kills himself & Monica. All the blood that splatters on the windshield causes a crash that Steve escapes, but is quickly killed by a stowaway zombie. CJ sacrifices himself to let the others escape and Michael stays behind when he gets bitten as well. The remaining group that would leave with the yacht would include: Ana, Kenneth, Nicole, Terry & Chips. The film would end in a cliffhanger of camcorded footage from Steve’s camera confirming the group did reach the island, only to be attacked by another zombie swarm. 


THOUGHTS


Most people would say the craziest collaboration were between Steven Spielberg & George Lucas for creating the Indiana Jones franchise. For me, I would say having debuting director Zack Snyder work with experienced writer James Gunn for a remake we didn’t think we’d enjoy. There are instant differences that makes this version stand out, which is having fast zombies inspired by 28 Days Later and have more characters in the isolated setting which helps raise the stakes much better. I respect these differences a lot because the stakes needed to be different in order to be surprised again of this familiar formula. The only thing that remains the same is the main setting being the mall. Each scene involving these iconic monsters works because you’re left biting your nails wondering how fast can they be and how close can anyone be to die before they actually do so. Army of the Dead gave us a zombie tiger, but seeing a zombie baby caught me off guard big time here. When not feeling all the intensity from Tyler Bates’ score and Matthew F Leonetti, you get to pick up on maintaining the original theme of unchecked consumerism while also reminding us the importance of cohesion, teamwork. If we’re not on the same page during trying times, we ain’t gonna evolve the way we want to. We can be stuck in circles lurking for the next feast like a zombie or fight for what you want & need like the survivors we follow. Army of the Dead may have a better ensemble for feeling more grounded, but I won’t take away the fact the ensemble here is as colorful. Sarah Polley & Ving Rhames easily make the best of characters as Anna and Kenneth respectively because they’re always resourceful and are always use that mindset at every turn. The former honestly got tougher despite having sentimentality because she was still self aware on the greater good which was killing a zombie baby when it came to it. She ended up having a relationship with Michael because Jake Weber portrayed him as one who had to get serious when necessary and didn’t hesitate either in doing what was right. Kenneth was determined to help out Andy because he was reminded of how vulnerable his own brother must be, the only other person he was thinking of after himself. And he agrees with letting the second batch of survivors in because the bigger the group meant to him better chances of survival. That didn’t go as planned, but you respect him being more selfless than he intends to be. Going back to Michael, his death sucked the most before the climax because he had this unexpected growth not enough people after Ana noticed. He always took command before anyone else did because he knew the importance of speaking up, which is what became beneficial when it came to overruling CJ. Speaking of which, Michael Kelly is pretty layered here because he came off tyrannical in a short period of time, but visibly showed that he did so to save himself like anyone else would. Bart followed his lead because he was that good of a leader before the outbreak, but Kevin Tegers made Terry likable because he was most pragmatic of the three. He took everyone else’s opinion to notice and caught on better that cooperation leads to success. If anything, he hit it off well with Nicole solely for whatever charm he showed off without trying. CJ’s death was a surprise as well because it took him putting others before himself for him to finally be respected. Sadly, he didn’t give growth in time for others to take notice and follow suit. Mekhi Phifer showed Andre as one who was most flawed in wanting to protect his partner and still hold onto the past hoping to still build a future, only to make things worse for himself instead of better. I can complain that someone should’ve noticed sooner of what was he doing. But in this case, sooner is better than never because lord knows what he could’ve done to feed his zombie wife. And then there was Steve who was undoubtedly the least likable when everyone else was doing their best to contribute before biting the dust. This is a 180 from Ty Burrell compared to what he would do as Phil Dunphy from abc’s Modern Family because Steve was the snarkiest who thought more of himself for the most part and he sure proved it when refusing to help Kenneth. It was obvious him bringing up the boat was his chance to bet on getting everyone else killed to better going alone. So when he dies before they made it to the boat, it was the only true sign of relief whereas the rest of the film ends with showing how hopeless the world can be when we lose our resources we’ve relied on too much. This movie holds well on its own when not comparing it to others, but there were still a few head scratching moments I couldn’t help picking up on. For example, I was caught off guard when the child Vivian bites Ana’s husband, but how the hell did she get inside? Ana didn’t seem like the kind of person that would leave the door unlocked, so I don’t get how this was possible. I can complain the ambulance should’ve looked both ways when driving through the neighborhood, but it was so pointless for the neighbor to cross the street. He could’ve had a clean shot on his side of the street if he really thought Ana was infected. And personally, I would’ve not traded a crowbar for a mini mallot if I was Michael. Also, why hasn’t CJ already made signs before the others got there? If he wanted to prove he was a good leader, that should’ve been done immediately after he took over the mall. And why exactly did the helicopter skip the SOS at the mall? Even if there wasn’t enough room for everyone at that point, they could’ve tried communicated the way Kenneth did with Andy. Most importantly, it’s hard to believe Ana waited so long to check on Luda before Nancy volunteered. If anyone should’ve deduced Andre’s secret sooner, it should’ve been between her and Kenneth. Lastly, why didn’t anyone check on Nicole before she left? If she knew she was fond of Chips that much, they should’ve tried harder in keeping her from leaving for her sake. That would’ve bettered their chances in less casualties in my opinion. Other than that, this one is still a blast. In short, Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead succeeds in being a bombastic zombie flick for taking its time in what it was trying to say. If you enjoyed Romero’s original story, I promise you’ll like this too.