Gracie Mae's Reviews and Writings :-): Movie Review: "Dawn of the Dead" 03/19/04

This is a movie review for "Dawn of the Dead", released March 19, 2004. I watched this on DVD on October 3, 2019.

Genre: Action, Horror

Run Time: 1 Hour and 41 Minutes

Trailer

Notable Cast

Sarah Polley ... Ana
Ving Rhames ... Kenneth
Jake Weber ... Michael
Mekhi Phifer ... Andre
Ty Burrell ... Steve
Michael Kelly ... CJ
Kevin Zegers ... Terry
Michael Barry ... Bart
Lindy Booth ... Nicole
Jayne Eastwood ... Norma
Boyd Banks ... Tucker
Inna Korobkina ... Luda
R.D. Reid ... Glen
Kim Poirier ... Monica
Bruce Bohne ... Andy

Plot

Life is normal until it becomes abnormal. What, zombies?! What are we to do? How can anyone survive? Ana, a registered nurse, has to figure this out for herself as her boyfriend/partner had turned into a zombie from a neighbor girl and then turned on her. Where can she go? Who can she trust? Will she survive?

Official MPAA Rating (According to IMDB.com):

G / General Audiences

PG / Parental Guidance Suggested

PG-13 / Parents Strongly Cautioned

R / Restricted

Not Rated

Rating Criteria

0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.

1/5 – Barely worth any time.

2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.

3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.

4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.

5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.

3.5/5 - *SPOILERS* I understand that this is a remake of a 1978 movie that I have not watched but this movie was pretty bland. There were three things that I found interesting and would love to rewatch (just those parts): the theory of a zombie baby, the interaction between Andy (across the road from the mall is where Andy's Gun Shop is and they communicate with him via binoculars), and the twist ending once the credits start playing.

I enjoyed being able to see the interaction between the mall folk and Andy, though you can see Andy degrading as the time goes on. It turns out that he had run out of food and was starving to death. They later will send a sandwich to him (but zombies get in and he cannot fight them off in his weakened state of being).
Here's Andy and the guys playing "Hollywood Squares". Andy is a good shot, too.

If you watch the extras on the DVD, you find this item: Andy's last days. This is super sad but it was a good addition to the movie. You can see how he actually slowly loses himself....

Zombie Luda "gives birth" to a zombie baby. I find this interesting because of the technicalities around the infection. Would a pregnant mother pass it on to the child (only the child has it), would the mother share it (both have it), or would the child not receive it at all? This is a line of thinking that is rarely questioned during zombie/infection/vampire/supernatural movies. However, the Blade series (vampires), the Underworld series (vampires and werewolves), the Twilight series (vampires and werewolves), "The Girl with All The Gifts" (zombies "hungries"), and this movie all ask this question: how does it affect the unborn children? Would the child become a "hybrid" as it was not a direct infection but passed through the mother to the child? Or would it merely kill the child, but would it then be dead-dead or undead?

According to this movie, since the mother was injured by a zombie and was infected, the child received the infection also. Now, I don't recall how far along Luda was before they got to the mall but she definitely received her injury right before the mall, so they maybe had a month before the baby was "born". Or was it "aborted", considering how much blood spurted out from her....? Though this has not been fully analyzed, the child was still moving around in its mother's womb even after she died and became a zombie. I would hypothesize that the child was already starting to turn zombie, maybe taking more of the infection from her so that it could grow, hence her turning much later to a zombie. Either way, this is kinda creepy to see a zombie baby, but it was one of the most interesting things in the whole movie to me.

Here is the birth:

After dealing with everything around the mall (including Luda's zombie baby and Andy turning after receiving a sandwich from the mall people), the group decides to try getting down to the marina, get a boat and try to get to islands because there usually are less population on islands and hence it might be safer than on the mainland. But during the credits, we find out that there are zombies even at the new place - this is not something to run away from.

Aside these three things (Andy, zombie baby, and the "aftermath"), I did not find this movie very interesting. It did keep my attention but it wasn't awe-inspiring. After the movie, I was tempted to throw it out of my library but the end credits made me smile a lot because not everything is "perfect" at the end. They had gotten away from the mall but still had more to deal with, which was awesome in my opinion. If they had not added this to the movie, I would have rated this movie at a 3/5 but the end credits gave it more value.

Anyways, that's my movie review. Thanks for reading! More reviews to come eventually.

~ Gracie Mae DeLunac

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"Everything Wrong with Dawn of the Dead 2004 (Zombie Sins)"
Credit to Wow Such Gaming.