Originally Posted by Dolemite
I'm mixed on this movie. I thought the first half was AMAZING. Simply AMAZING. The fact that, unlike the original, which slowly built up the zombie problem, the fact that the world basically turned to hell overnight was very freaky. They did an awesome job showing all the chaos and really built an effective sense of panic and creepiness. It was intense and really well done. The twist with the security guys showing up on the second floor of the mall and the problems that resulted was a nice change from the original, too. And the on-going thing with the cop and the owner of the gun store talking back and forth using only eraser boards was very cool...in fact, it was something I wish was delved into a bit more.
Some nice humor in the film, too. The part where the husband is chasing the car like the T-1000 and suddenly veers off to attack the woman standing on her yard had me cracking up. That, and the "celeberty sniping" game they played with Andy the gun store owner.
Then came the black guy and his girlfriend. That whole scene with them and the baby basically marked the turning point of the movie- the whole thing basically fell apart from there. The guy started doing things that NO ONE WOULD DO.
Come on, he ties up his girlfriend, she dies, turns into a zombie, and he still tries to deliver her baby? Then the old woman comes in with the gun, and he's all like, "You tryin' to kill my family?!" while holding the zombie baby. Come on, if he had showed any signs of being insane before that I might have bought the whole scene but he didn't.
That scene annoyed me because they had made things so realistic (well, for a zombie movie, anyway). People acted the way you'd expect them to act in such a situation, and suddenly with that scene they just got stupid. Another example:
The cute redhead suddenly turns retarded and decided to drive all by herself into thousands of zombies just to resuce a dog.
Please.
A simple propane tank suddenly becoming a nuclear bomb and killing hundreds of zombies (without scratching the truck that was 2 feet away) was pretty stupid, too.
Plus, the lack of gore was a shame, but it didn't take away from the movie. Movies just aren't as gory anymore.
Oh, and that chainsaw accident near the end was a real shame, huh?
BTW, it was cool that the one security guy that was the biggest asshole turned into almost the hero of the movie.
One possible major fuck up, though:
The movie takes place in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is in the MIDDLE OF THE UNITED STATES. The only body of water they could possibly sail away on in a boat would be either Lake Superior or Lake Michigan, and lakes aren't known for their abundance of islands...dumbasses.
Guess they should have stayed at the mall, huh? ;) Because even if they did manage to make it back into the boat, they were out of food, water and gas. They're fucked.
Overall, a good movie, though some of the stupid shit that popped up in the middle dragged down a movie that could have been great. I thought the original was better and had a better sense of logic. I mean, if the zombies in the remake can tear through a chain-link fence, they should have been able to break through the mall's glass doors with no problem...at least the people in the original had the good sense to block off the doors with trucks so they zombies couldn't break in. Also, they at least tried to explain the whole zombie situation a little more in the original, and show how it was affecting the country.
But in a way, NOT knowing what was happening everywhere else made things a bit MORE creepy in the remake. It increased the sense of isolation and made things seem more girm and uncertain. Both movies did things well, just not the same things.
NO, there wasn't. Some nice vehicular violence, but aside from a few bites and some headshots (including one really nice one done point-blank by a shotgun), the movie wasn't very gory AT ALL, and anyone who says it was doesn't know what a gory horror movie is. It didn't even have HALF the gore of the original. No zombies munching on internal organs and limbs, nothing. Gore-wise, it was pretty tame.
A shame, the ratings board probably imposed a lot of cuts on the filmmakers. Hopefully the DVD will be uncut.
