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I knew as soon as I heard about this movie that I would have a hard time giving it a fair shake. I was able to enjoy the Chainsaw remake because, although I enjoyed the original and appreciate its significance to the genre, it was never a favorite of mine. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, however, is.
So as to the obvious question, "is the remake as good as the original?" Well, not really. For a couple of reasons. First of all, Romero's film operates primarily as social satire. Second of all, it concentrates entirely on a cast of only four characters. Over the course of the film you become very close to all of them.
The remake, on the other hand, is a straight-ahead action film with far too many characters to really follow. Sure, there are four or five that take prominence, but there is so much going on that you don't develop that sympathetic relationship to them.
That being said, I did actually enjoy the film quite a bit. The opening sequence is perfectly done, pulling the audience into the world through the eyes of the lead character during her horrified flight through the chaos of the outbreak. The relationship across the rooftops between the protagonists and the lone survivor across the street was a nice twist, and well done. The big finale was also well executed. On the whole, if 28 Days Later hadn't come out last year I probably would have really liked this movie quite a bit. But at the end of the day, Danny Boyle did it better.
So I guess I would give this one a moderately good recommendation. It's certainly worth the price of admission. By any other title it would be a pretty good movie. It just sucks that Romero is walking around with a script for Dead Reconing and he can't get investors to back it, meanwhile the yahoo who wrote Scooby Doo gets tons of money to rehash Romero's legacy. That's just a crying shame.
So as to the obvious question, "is the remake as good as the original?" Well, not really. For a couple of reasons. First of all, Romero's film operates primarily as social satire. Second of all, it concentrates entirely on a cast of only four characters. Over the course of the film you become very close to all of them.
The remake, on the other hand, is a straight-ahead action film with far too many characters to really follow. Sure, there are four or five that take prominence, but there is so much going on that you don't develop that sympathetic relationship to them.
That being said, I did actually enjoy the film quite a bit. The opening sequence is perfectly done, pulling the audience into the world through the eyes of the lead character during her horrified flight through the chaos of the outbreak. The relationship across the rooftops between the protagonists and the lone survivor across the street was a nice twist, and well done. The big finale was also well executed. On the whole, if 28 Days Later hadn't come out last year I probably would have really liked this movie quite a bit. But at the end of the day, Danny Boyle did it better.
So I guess I would give this one a moderately good recommendation. It's certainly worth the price of admission. By any other title it would be a pretty good movie. It just sucks that Romero is walking around with a script for Dead Reconing and he can't get investors to back it, meanwhile the yahoo who wrote Scooby Doo gets tons of money to rehash Romero's legacy. That's just a crying shame.