From the start it’s clear that this is not the groundbreaker Night was, nor the masterpiece Dawn was. But neither is it what I expected – the few little comments I’d read implied that Romero had “sold out” and kinda made a sequel more stylistically similar to the recent Dawn remake than something in keeping with his own Day. This movie is truly Romero, and you could strip out the zombies even, his stamp would be clear as day. This is a bizarre movie for this day and age, the style is so … I don’t know … old-fashioned.

“In a world where the dead are returning to life, the word ‘trouble’ loses much of its meaning.”

One thing the movie is missing to me is sympathetic characters. I don’t remember exactly why, but I was really absorbed by the characters in Dawn (along with everything else). Here, the characters seem as cold as a Cronenberg movie (I’m thinking Crash in particular). Then, this may be intended. One of the best things about Romero’s Dead Trilogy to date has always been the social/political commentary, and here there’s a clear point being made about society’s response to “A Situation”. Somehow it never rings quite as true and scathing as the simple singular image of zombies walking through a shopping mall, though. It just feels … cold. Which I guess is how the world feels right now.

I think it’s very cool how Romero has finally pulled his shit together and made another installment that fits so well stylistically into the trilogy he ended two decades ago. Personally, though, I’ll continue to stick to the classic ‘78 Dawn of the Dead, and I’m unlikely to get this one on DVD unless some great collection (including all the Dawn: Ultimate discs) emerges in the HD format This one is just too short, not gory enough, not climactic enough. Another 2005 disappointment, really. I don’t even really want to put it in the horror category, but it has no place else to go.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 19th, 2005 at 12:46 am in 3 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.