Directed by: Zack Snyder
Zombie. Gah! I got fed up with zombie in a movie. And after that horrible, un-bearable, so-stupid-it-disgusts-you House of the Dead, a supposedly-a-movie made from the hack / slash game about zombie I got a real low expectancy for films about zombies. And so does my expectancy toward this film.
However, in minutes ahead I shall find myself glued to my chair as the movie rolls by.
As you may have heard, the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead was a re-make to a 78's horror which many would considered it as a classic. I haven't seen the original version though, but I highly doubted that it will be better than the one I had right now.
The movie began slowly. There was a good ten minutes before the actual credit-title rolls up (using the real human blood's splatter they said) portraying a peaceful life of Ana (portrayed below), a nurse on her way back to her home where her daughter and husband waited with arms extended in love.
But then when the dusk gone and the dawn come, Ana quickly found a nightmare right after she woke up when her dead-walk daughter attacked her husband, chewe-off his left ear and subsequently turns her husband into a dead-walk (mind you, that none of the characters in this movie using the word 'zombie' to describe them) who then viciously attacks her (with credit to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining camera shot). Barely able to flee through the window, she found out that the rest of her neighborhood had turns into a blood turmoil chaos full of dead-walks similar to her husband and her daughter. And then the credit title rolls.
The rest of the movie is pretty much the same with the original versions. On her way out of town, Ana (Polley) stumbled into a huge officer, Kenneth (Ving Rhames) and several others survivors. Together they'd hole up and fortified themselves at the mall where lots and lots of dead-walks scouring those who inside in hope to had a touch with a fresh human-flesh.
One thing that satisfied me during the movie was that it doesn't bother to explains hows and whys. It was simply dead-walks, human which more than happy to kill one another. I'd put a 'fun' word to describe the movie. It knows exactly what i want (hence, i want to see some blood, and they gave me just that without any tits-bits about as-a-matter-of-fact details). Some stupidities occures where a particular character without thinking thrown herself to a road-full of gnarling dead-walks just to save one puny dog.
Some quiet drama was also put briefly halfway the movie when Ana, finally having a time on her own remembering her loss and tragedy that had befell her. But quickly enough, she'd found another man to bumped into (yeah! i dont need that kissing-scene, it was sooo stupid).
The characters were okay, though most of them just being there to add the body counts but some of the character had their own sub-plot such as Ana and Michael's intimacy, Andre's concern and love about his unborn infected-fetus, Frank and Nicole's sad farewell and Kenneth's long distance relationship with the man on the gun-store roof. Though we don't need any character development in this kind of movie, the necessity of putting some character development was handled nicely which adds an excellent delicacy for the whole dish.
And finally, the ending. Don't skip the closing-title to get a full ending (my kind of ending). When seconds before closing-title starts rolling, i was actually disappointed. "That's it?", i grumbled to myself. But, i stayed until the closing-title rolling nonetheless. And damn! what a reward, as some footage that inserted between the closing-title (and accompanied by terrific soundtrack) giving me the ending that i had been expected, an ending that satisfied me. Hence, when watching this movie, make sure you dont skip the closing title.
Rating: ***1/2 / **** - The best hack / slash movie of 2004. It also solidified "chain-electric-saw" as my #1 tools for killing. Gya ha ha ha ha ha!