Dawn of the Dead (2004) review

Number 897 on the top 1000 films of all time is Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of George A. Romero's zombie-horror classic 'Dawn of the Dead.'

Nurse Anna (Sarah Polley) wakes up in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The dead are rising up and feasting on the living. She meets up with police officer Kenneth (Ving Rhames) and three other survivors: former salesman and family man Michael (Jake Weber) petty criminal Andre (Mekhi Phifer) and his pregnant Russian girlfriend Luda (Inna Korobkina.) Together they take shelter in an abandoned shopping mall where they realise the dead are the least of their worries.

Dare, I say I actually preferred this to the 1977 original. Unlike its predecessor, the tension and suspense always ran high. The action was immediate, as the characters were always in some type of danger. In the original, after our heroes enter the shopping mall, the narrative and as such the tension, completely dries up. This doesn't happen here.

I think it helped immensely that there were more than three characters. This meant there were more people to care about, more potential for conflict and better opportunity for interesting character dynamics. When our original group of survivors enter the mall, they are confronted by a trio of security guards led by the tyrannical CJ  (Michael Kelley.)

Later on another group of survivors crash their bus into the mall bringing with them a whole new host of problems. Meanwhile, Andre is hiding a dark secret from the rest of the group. There is a narrative tension galore. Mainly because all the threats and conflicts always felt imminent rather than vague and faceless.

True a lot of the conflict is fuelled by characters making stupid, unrealistic decisions while a lot of the characterisations never went past the superficial, but the actors did a good job with what they had. Sarah Polley was good as Anna. She took the role as the character wasn't your typical Scream Queen. I would agree with this. But Kenneth and Andre were less drawn. They were little more than a cop and a criminal. I also feel I need to mention Michael Kelley as CJ. He goes through a redemption arc, going from a tyrannical jerk to an unlikely hero. And Kelley was good in the role.

I also enjoyed how restrained Zack Snyder was in his direction. Unlike in 300, where he over-indulges in visual effects, he is less excitable here. there is far less crappy CGI and gratuitous slow motion.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this remake. It was one of these rare occasions where the remake was better than the original. 

300 review

 Number 513 on the top 1000 films of all time Zack Snyder's historical, action film '300.'

Based on the historical events, 300 follows King Leonidas (Gerald Butler) leading his 300 strong soldiers in battle against the Persian King-God Xerses (Rodrigo Santoro.) Fiercely outnumbered, Leonidas and his soldiers are determined to fight with everything they have.

300 strongly reminded me of a sword-and-sandals version of Braveheart. You had your dodgy history, your cheesy dialogue, your dodgy accents and plenty of blood and guts. However, what's important to remember that, first and foremost, 300 and Braveheart are films. They're films designed to entertain and not documentaries designed to inform. So it wouldn't really be fair to judge the films on their historical accuracy. Also 300 was inspired by Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name. Just like Snyder, Miller embellished history to tell a better story. Snyder also utilised a special chroma key technique to represent the graphic novel's visual style. Granted the film isn't the most believable at times, it definitely isn't something to be taken seriously.

That notwithstanding, I do think you can legitimately criticise the film for its pacing. It was just so damn slow. Away from Leonidas, there are a lot of dialogue-heavy scenes between Lena Headley and Dominic West. And even though there were plenty lots of action/battle scenes which you would think would speed things up, this was immediately undermined by the gratuitous slow-motion. We saw some exciting action sequences that became boring when they were slowed down. There's only so many times we can see Leonidas or one of his generic minions cutting off a Persian's head or impaling them on a spear in slow-motion.

The cheesy dialogue did not do anything to help speed things up either. Just as it looks like things might get going, the plot is slowed down with some verbose, corny monologue. These monologues were mostly delivered by Gerard Butler in an attempt to psych up his troops. But he also had plenty of cheesy and unnecessary one-liners. Yet a lot of the dialogue was over-written. It could have been pared down immensely. 

The supporting cast were all very indistinguishable at all. I did struggle in telling who was who. Yes, they were all soldiers and dressed the same, but even so I think they could have been better characterised. Even though there were some famous faces like Michael Fassbender or David Wenham, it was hard to tell one Spartan from another.

Speaking of David Wenham, he plays Dillos - the only survivor of the attack and also the narrator of the film. I really feel like we could have done without the narration. At times, it did help to elucidate what was happening, but mostly, it seemed like a massive engine for exposition. And this constant, non-stop exposition killed the pacing time after time. Dillos was generally telling us things that we already knew or that we could infer from the context. It just wasn't necessary most of the time. 

Also the CGI was just awful. All of the backgrounds and the monsters looked so fake. I can only assume this was intentional, but I'm not sure why.

300 is an enjoyable enough film. Yes, it is cheesy, slow and historically inaccurate. But you have to remember it is only a film at the end of the day. Watch it for its entertainment factor and you won't be disappointed.