Okay, I think I've got it....

[trinityvixen]

Right, so zombies. What's up with the zombie flicks these days? They're just like begging me to flip the fuck out and start slaughtering people who don't talk or who shamble along too slowly or who have chunks of flesh either missing from their face or between their teeth. Really, really, zombies? I mean, is this necessary? So, I went Monday to see Dawn of the Dead. I somehow managed to convince myself that despite not really loving the original, that Ving Rhames as Mr. Bad-ass Motherfucker and any excuse for a new zombie movie was reason enough to go. I'm surprised at how I went from 'eh' to 'yeah!' so quickly.

Right, so back to the zombies...I really am not liking this whole trend of zombies suddenly moving fast and like needlessly biting people they don't end up eating. Resident Evil had them jumping out of nowhere, but they still tended to stumble a lot or mill around. 28 Days Later didn't make them dead, which was novel, but that meant, until they starved, they were faaaaaaaast. Dawn of the Dead is just like what the hell, let's make it the best of both worlds, make 'em fast and jumping out of nowhere. I didn't appreciate the shout out to Dead Alive or Brain Dead for you folks outside the US with the zombie baby. Carrie saw that one coming, as she kept saying; I mean, so did I, but that didn't mean I couldn't hope and pray they weren't going to go there...

I loved it. I was scared to death after the movie, seeing as the possibility of real-life zombies somehow makes more sense and thus scares me more than a movie could. It's just a movie, but in the real world....zombies could be hiding anywhere! But back to the movie....yeah, I really, really enjoyed it. It wasn't the guilty pleasure of Milla in a red dress and the yogurt guy, or the creepy intimate scary of the intrahuman conflict in 28 Days Later/i>, it was just enjoyable. It did what I wanted from it, a good thrill, believable effects (the makeup is vaaaaaastly improved over the original, to be sure), and best of all, GREAT characters. Yes, too many characters, like Resident Evil only worse---RE had people you could caricature, this one was more like "oh yeah, and there's that guy, too" a lot. Which means anyone you don't really get to like or know is gonna die. But characters...gosh, characters, three-dimensional ones, too. I mean, yeah, Ving Rhames is a burlier Samuel L Jackson, you know not to mess with his bad self, and you know he's never going to freak out or let anyone down (like Shaft!). And there was the comic relief guy who never developed any interest in the lives of others, the tough customer who proves to have a heart of gold by the end, the young couple, etc etc etc.

I really loved the main characters, Ana and Michael. Sarah Polley was great--she reminded me of Ben, the last survivor of Night of the Living Dead who survived (until the end, anyway) because she thought fast enough on her feet to know when to stay and when to go, even right from the beginning. Actually, she and Jake Weber were like the Ben character. Jake Weber (or as Liz C kept calling him, "Vince Vaughn's partner in The Cell," or "that cop from The Cell") did the calm, cool, and collected thing, saying stay put for now, let's do this, we have to take this amount of risk, it's worth it if it works, etc. He was, too, just a really collected, imperfect character; he gets a nice scene where he admits his failures and does it so honestly, I wanted to hug him. And his romantic interest in Sarah Polley's character was so cute because it's not the "guy and girl in jeopardy must fall in love" scenario. It was just 'I admire you and what you're capable of doing in this really stressful situation, but this isn't really the time or place' flirtation. They don't banter, they talk to each other, challenge each other, and they come across more as good friends, which is, as we all know, the best way to start out upon a relationship full of mad, mad monkey sex. Heh heh.

And Andy! Oh! There was a guy trapped on top of another building across from the mall, on the roof of a gun shop who was just so plucky you really cheered for him. You just knew he wouldn't make it, not alone, but it's so great that the lead among the mall crew are trying to figure out how to work him into their escape plan, and it's fun to watch him pick off people with his sniper scope...alas, poor Andy. It made me really pissed that this terribly empathetic character bought it and the really annoying girlfriend character of the cute kid didn't. Stupid canine-fetish trollop!

Yeah, I liked it. You could see every development coming--oh, so and so will end up dying to save the group, so and so will end up flipping out, so and so will make it almost to the end but get bitten and not be able to go on with the uninfected survivors. I knew it, could tell easily, but you really hated it when you lost a favorite or cheered when someone really annoying bought it. I guess it reminded me a lot more of Night that the original Dawn because of the character interactions, being much more contentious between certain people (I thought originally that Jake Weber would be the calm level-headed one squaring off against the redneck security dude, but it all works out). No, there's not the faaaaaamous critique of the commercial zombification going on in capitalist society, but it's still there a little and it's better for not making a huge thing of it (that just dragged the original on and on and on).

Okay, in the interest of not boring people any more, I declare this declaration of love for the new Dawn over before it rivals my tome on the Matrix Revs....*shudders* Ugh, bad movie has ruined happy from good movie.

Comments

[teneda.livejournal.com]

The zombies are moving faster because people are keeping in better shape. *looks in mirror* OK, MOST people are keeping in bet-*thinks about obesity stats for the US* OK, the theatre going public got bored of them just shambling along and began pointing out plotholes like, "You could just RUN!"

Though I gotta say, when I saw it with a friend and that girl went in after the dog (VERY predictably) we (he being Korean and I Chinese) just yelled out, "Midwestern white people are stoooooooopid." At least Ving WATCHED the other movies, he was smart enough to keep the shotgun handy.