Dawn of the Dead

A review by Jason Latona

 

(Caution, small spoilers ahead.) Dawn of the dead of reminded me of 28 days later in many ways: a mystical force (perhaps viral) transmitted from a bite results in something worse than death: a zombie-like human leftover with great strength and an intense desire to maul those folks that have the gall to still be alive & uninfected. Recognizing this similarity made me a bit disappointed at first, but just like with 28 days later the gore became secondary to the fact that I was somewhat drawn into the characters.

Without revealing too much of the story, here’s the gist: a group of diverse personalities end up having to rely on each other to survive against the bad guys.

Sarah Polley is the lead, and she plays a nurse whose husband is the first of many to be mauled by the death-shirking zombies that terrorize throughout the film. She’s tough and she keeps her head when it counts.

Weakest of the primaries was Mekhi Phifer, who plays himself, or the character that I assume is his self, because he behaves exactly the same way every Thursday on ER.

Ving Rhames is quietly intimidating as a police officer who is trying to get to a shelter where he thinks his brother is hiding, and in the process runs into the rest of the gang.

Jake Weber, who I swear has some Al Pacino blood in him, ends up being the brains behind the bunch, calmly making decisions and providing something of a love interest for Sarah Polley’s character.

The rest of the ensemble includes a ‘hot’ sluttish woman (Kim Poirier), a redneck jerk (Michael Kelley), a rich jerk (Ty Burrell), a strapping young nice guy (Kevin Zegers) and his love interest (Lindy Booth). Lindy owns one of the dumber moments of the film, risking her self and the others to rescue a dog that she knew for maybe 2 weeks. It’s one of those moments where you want to slap your hand to your forehead (or to hers) and ask, "Why?"

Anyway, to no surprise there are a few moments in this film where decisions that could be made by the average 12 year old are royally flubbed by the grownups, but overall I was very entertained by this movie. The action starts almost immediately, and there really isn’t a dull moment to speak of.

One of the neatest points of the film involves a man across the street, whose only form of contact with the rest of the survivors is a chalkboard. It’s a good script, it isn’t overly cheesy and it isn’t a typical slasher movie. 

I give it a B-.

PS: If you watch Freddie vs. Jason a day or two before you see Dawn, this will seem like an A+ :-)