April 02, 2004

Cast:

Sarah Polley (Ana) –zombie chick-chow.

Ving Rhames (Kenneth) – zombie dark chow.

Jake Weber (Michael) – zombie chow lite.

Bruce Bohne (Andy) – NRA approved zombie chow.

Ermes Blarasin (Bloated Woman) – well, aren’t they all at one time or another?

When I first saw the title, Dawn Of The Dead, I thought, “Hey, the sequel to Passion Of The Christ is out already!” (insert rimshot here) Actually, D.O’D.2004. is a gooey mess of a different blood type altogether. Based on the original George Romero gorefest of 1978, this remake speeds up the zombies, camps up the soundtrack and ramps up the shock value to the point where we begin looking forward to picking out which unlikable emoooting ahk-tor we’d like to see end up as the next ghoulie-snack. Limp-wristed feelm crit-teeks are having hissy fits over the fact that this retread does nothing to advance Romero’s original story. But does it have to? It’s flesh-feasting zombies gone wild, fer krissakes – it ain’t Hemmingway. D.O’D.2004 could easily be retitled, “28 Days Later meets the NRA.” And once again we have yet another walking-dead flick that begs the question: why aren’t there any vegetarian zombies?

Here is the plot of D.O’D.2004 in a tasty li’l morsel: Hungry zombies chase people around the Milwaukee suburbs. Cannibalistic goonism ensues. It all starts at 6:45AM with a 10-year-old who chomps the throat out of her neighbor – well, they always say breakfast is the most important part of the day.

A TV preacher laments, “When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.” Well, Hell yourself, Padre; that pretty much describes any liberal run city after closing time. Ever been to Times Square at 3:00AM? Pretty much zombie central.

The PC in D.O’D.2004 oozes out all over. To begin with, we have brown-n-beefy Ving Rhames, the quintessential big black hero with big black muscles. Ving just looks like a badass (I’m pretty sure all black comic book heroes are drawn off him). Ving also gets the ultimate Hollyweird PC prize in this film; the honorary title of The Sacred Minority. This self-imposed Hollyweird rule insures that if there is only one of any particular “minority” in a movie; that character will be endowed with sacred qualities. Ditto if needed to provide balance to a rare “minority” baddie character. Whattaya know; there is another black guy in the film and he plays a gansta-punk with a pregnant girlfriend. He only wants to “… set things straight and raise my baby right; give her all the things I never had.” Right, kid; ya shoulda thought about that before armageddon.

Just imagine the liberal screeching if both the black characters in the film were loser gansta-punks. Where’s the Hollyweird film showing that? Oh yeah, there is the evening news.

Ghetto residents are only violent and angry because they don’t have all the material things that other folks do. Taxpayer-paid-for social programs will solve all poverty problems and Big Brother Guv’mint should redistribute the wealth in America through forced charity (aka: welfare). It’s not fair for some people to have more things than others. Poverty and crime are the fault of rich Caucasian conservatives. I know this, because Hollyweird tells me so.

More PC gray matter splatters when we see Ving the conscientious copper meet up with a cabal of nasty mall rent-a-cops; and these are the worse kind of rent-a-cops; uptight white suburbanite rent-a-cops. Naturally, the rent-a-cops cannot be trusted and the leader is a power-mad geek who takes advantage of the impending anarchy to crown himself King Of The Mall. Imagine the caterwauling from the left if the racial roles were reversed. Good cop white; bad rent-a-cops black. You’ll never see that in a Hollyweird movie.

White guys cannot be trusted with guns or power. If given the chance, Evil Whitey will use force and position to enslave unfortunate “minorities” and indigenous peoples. Whitey’s in power – ya just can’t trust ‘em. I know this, because Hollyweird tells me so.

Later, we see a military chopper purposely pass our survivors by as they stand on a rooftop waiting to be rescued. This is the Hollyweird view of our military – an organization of self-centered, unfeeling oafs who totally disregard the civilian population.

Bad American military! Bad bad bad!

So where was this military bashing when former Presibubba Bill Clinton was in office? Oh yeah, that’s right; as long as Dubya is in office, portraying the military in a positive light is not on the agenda.

More PC spurts out as we see our heroine, Ana, proudly displaying her necklace. Look closely at it. I’m sure it’s a Saint Christopher medal. As usual, her faith does her no good – perhaps she just likes it because it is gold and shiney.

Christianity is the religion of fools and morons. There is no highter power than the Big Brother Guv'mint. Praying does no good; only Big Guv’mint can make your life safer and better. I know this, because Hollyweird tells me so.

Memo to Hollyweird: St. Christoher is not the patron saint of the dead. Saint Gertrude is, but we don’t expect you to know that; you despise Christianity. By the way, Saint Christopher is one of the patron Saints of the “sudden dead,” whatever that means; but I know you didn’t know that.

Like all BOO! OOGABOOGA! movies, D.O’D.2004 is rife with implausibilities; in fact, the entire concept is one giant implausibility, but that’s the whole fun of it. First off, an explanation is never offered as to why people are turning into zombies – they just do, so there. Naturally, the evil military industrial complex is hinted at, but nothing is confirmed. Secondly, the zombies seem to have an insatiable thirst for human blood, but they don’t die if they don’t eat – they hang out in front of the mall for days with no people to munch on. So what’s the big blood-hunger all about if not for survival? Thirdly, the zombies don’t like animal-meat, but there’s only one dog in the whole movie – I’d figure there’d be stray dogs and cats all over the place with half the owners being zombified and the other half relegated to zombie chow. One particular unsettling scene has a zombie ho’ giving birth to a zombie baby (a cinematic nod to Rosemary’s Baby). The frightened mall-survivors shoot the newborn little beastie. Now, the premise of this film is that you can only be zombified if a zombie bites you. And what is it that newborn babies do not have? Teeth. They could have studied the little critter and learned a few things, but hey, why start learning things now? Also, if they were concerned about getting food to the lone survivor atop the building across the street, they could’ve simply catapulted some over, or used a rigged clothesline-style setup. They were, after all, secured inside a mall, with plenty of tools, gizmo’s and provisions. Come to think of it, if you run through a gaggle of dead hungry cannibals to save a dog you just met an hour ago, then you deserve to be zombie nosh.

This brings us to the funniest scene in the movie, where the gun store owner and the mall survivors play “target practice” with the wandering zombies below. They pick out goons who resemble (faintly) celebrities and then blast their heads off. They single out a meandering ghoul with a big mustache, label him “Burt Reynolds” and BLAM! One well-placed bullet in the cranium puts the goon down for good. But when a “Rosie O’Donnell” lookalike zombie is singled out, one of the characters says, “Nah … we can’t shoot Rosie!” Can you fathom the squealing from the Hollyweird left if they blasted a fat lesbo zombie and called it Rosie? It might cause irreparable harm … to middle America who would laugh themselves into a heart attack.

Ticket-buyer note: Don’t leave before the end credits are complete; the story continues through the credits.

D.O’D.2004 has all five of the Bachelor B’s. Blood (smeared, splattered & consumed), Beasts (rambling, running & raging), Bashes (zombie parts aflyin’ every whichaway), Bombs (them goons blows up real good) and Breasts (a disconnected, yet not unwelcome, booby-flash at the end).

Bottom line here is if ya seen one zombie flick ya seen ‘em, all. Nothing to see here folks, wander on home – hey … why you lookin’ at me and lickin’ yer lips like that … heyyy … OW! Do I look like a Scooby snack to you? (This was written by the same Hollyweird nerds that penned Scooby Doo)

And yeah, yeah, yeah; I get it, you backwards-dancing feelm stoo-dents: man is man’s own worst enemy. Whatever. Blah, blah, blah … pass me a plate of red meat with a side of shut-the-hell-up, now will ya?

I give Dawn Of The Dead (2004) three Capitalist Dollar Signs (out of 5).

$$$

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