Review by Leonard Norwitz
Studio:
Theatrical: Strike Entertainment & New Amsterdam
Entertainment
Blu-ray: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Disc:
Region FREE!
Runtime: 109 min
Chapters: 20
Size: 25 GB
Case: Standard Amaray Blu-ray case
Release date: September 30, 2008
Video:
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Resolution: 1080p
Video codec: 2.35:1
Audio:
English 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio; Spanish & French DTS
5.1
Subtitles:
English SDH, Spanish & French
Extras:
• Commentary by Director Zack Snyder & Producer Eric
Newman
• Exclusive to Blu-ray: U-Control with
Picture-in-Picture Interactive Cast & Crew Interviews
with Behind the Scenes Footage.
The Movie: 7
First there was George A. Romero's ground-breaking 1968
black & white Night of the Living Dead , made on the
cheap with amateur actors. (It was remade in 1990 in
color and higher tech production, exec-produced by
Romero, directed by Tom Savini.) The charm and seductive
power of Romero's first directorial effort was its very
low-tech approach – out of necessity came a kind of art
form that eventually led to bastardizations such as The
Blair Witch Project. Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers
before it, Romero's ending did not resolve the matter,
and a sequel was certainly plausible and probably
inevitable. Romero gave us the much better funded Dawn
of the Dead ten years later. In Dawn, Romero was more
direct in his satirical social commentary, setting his
story in a large indoor shopping mall, where zombies
return more out of habit than intention. This was
followed in 1985 with Day of the Dead, where the gore
threatened to take over the movie.
Cut now to 2005, when Zack Snyder, soon to make his mark
with 300, itself a remake of the Battle of Thermopylae,
came out with his surprisingly competent reconsideration
of the Dawn of the Dead. I decided to watch the Romero
original, also available in pretty good Blu-ray by the
way, the night before, so I had my critical mind set in
place and was prepared for the worst. But, somehow,
surprisingly, the worst didn't materialize. Without
getting into a pissing contest about it, I found
Snyder's movie worked well on its own terms, despite its
occasional flaws and deviations from the Romero vision,
while staying the course.
The big difference is the relative insignificance of the
mall in Snyder's film, which is considerably darker and
more claustrophobic. There is the possibility in
Romero's movie that its new human guests might be able
to make a home here, a thought which is fairly soon
discarded in Snyder's, not least because he throws in
another source of danger: humans. Our small band of
refugees soon become prisoners of a trio of security
guards, led by the small-time megalomaniac CJ (Michael
Kelly). As an additional group of refugees joins them
and as the zombies gather relentlessly in ever-growing
numbers outside the mall, the idea of remaining at the
mall becomes increasingly unpalatable.
Snyder's movie owes much to Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later
- not in its storyline, but in its tone and in giving
its zombies some mobility that makes their threat that
much more inescapable. It is of no small importance,
historically speaking, that this new Dawn of the Dead is
Snyder's first feature film. Comparing it to Romero's
first movie in those terms is mind-boggling. One wonders
where all the money comes from to chance an investment
on a relative unknown.
Image:
9/9
The first number indicates a relative level of
excellence compared to other Blu-ray video discs on a
ten-point scale. The second number places this image
along the full range of DVD and Blu-ray discs.
Universal is gradually reproducing in Blu-ray titles
that it previously released in its HD-DVD format, for
which we must be grateful. I am unable to compare the
two – nor do I see how such a comparison could be
brought off with any degree of assurance, given the
difference in hardware. More useful would be comparisons
made to the 480i DVD, which at least can be viewed via
the same player. I remember seeing bits of this movie a
while back on DVD and thought it soft, even for that
medium. Not so, the Blu-ray, which is a satisfying, if
not perfect, rendering of what we can assume are
original intentions. Where we see noise (as opposed to
grain), as in the dimly lit underground garage scene, it
comes and goes quickly. Elsewhere, the contrast scale is
excellent, becoming longer at the black end without
sacrificing too much detail. Occasional moments of
saturated color leap off the screen but not out context.
Audio & Music:
9/7
This is one of the better audio mixes out there: it has
plenty of breadth, dynamic contrast and directionality.
Zombie noises and groans have an otherworldy angst to
them that rips right through the soul. In those moments
of hard-hitting action, we always know what and who's
coming from where. All this with a clear dialogue track.
Demo material, this.
Operations:
7
The menu is laid out like other Universal Blu-rays I
have seen so far – and they are all very cleverly laid
out, indeed. I like the arrows that tell you which way
to direct you remote, and the bonus feature instructions
are detailed and intuitive. High marks here. The chapter
menu includes buttons for U-Control in case you want to
approach those functions from that point. And there is
also a way to adjust the PIP volume in the set-up menu.
The only difficulty here is that that the bonus
material, previously available on SD in a separately
engageable format, need to be processed through the gate
of U-Control, which doesn't really give U the Control U
probably want.
Extras:
4
As mentioned in Operations, the bonus material,
previously available on SD in a separately engageable
format, need to be processed through the gate of
U-Control, nor are they laid out in a way that we can
easily recognize them. First time feature film director
Zack Snyder appears in an entertaining commentary, along
with Producer Eric Newman. Snyder reflects on what it
was like on his maiden voyage and the whys and
wherefores of his choices as he deviated from the Romero
script.
Bottom line:
7
Even if you haven't seen any other Dead movies (Is that
possible!), this one stands on its own. I like to think
of Snyder's experiment in something like the same way as
the second Ghost in the Shell movie, Innocence, lives in
a parallel universe from the TV series. The Blu-ray
image is very good, and the audio excellent.
Recommended.
Leonard Norwitz
September 27th, 2008