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100Don't leave before the final frame -- if you're still breathing.
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Tense, bloody, funny and smart; lacks original's conscience, but it's still a surprisingly gritty remake.
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80A welcome surprise, containing more bona fide scares than Romero's vision, while paying grand lip service to the old master. Truly worthy of that famous title.
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80Good zombie fun, the remake of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead is the best proof in ages that cannibalizing old material sometimes works fiendishly well.
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80Yes, it's essentially a remake of a sequel, albeit a sequel that happens to be one of the greatest horror movies ever made, but it more than surpasses the original.
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80The movie has many of the elements that made the first "Dawn" so darkly entertaining.
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75My only complaint is that its plot flatlines compared to the 1979 version, which was trickier, wittier and smarter. Romero was not above finding parallels between zombies and mall shoppers.
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75Faster, leaner and more compact than the original. Dumber, too, but that's almost always the case with remakes.
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75There was no burning need for a remake, but this one is respectful of its predecessor. It incorporates the technology and acquisitiveness of the intervening quarter century since Romero's vision. It even features a metrosexual, something unheard of in 1978.
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This film plays out like one of those trigger-happy video games -- it's all cranial splatter. Word to the squeamish: Dawn of the Dead merits a very hard R rating. The depictions of violence are exceedingly graphic.
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75It's silly, witty and good-natured, not scary so much as icky, and not horrifying or horrible but consistently amusing.
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75Calling this version of Dawn of the Dead a remake is applying a misnomer. It's more of a re-imagination.
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75An amply entertaining tale of survival terror, fully realizing the epicness of Romero's vision by infecting every wide-angled overhead shot with as many computer-generated cadavers as possible, and bridging tense moments with a laugh-aloud, plucky wit.
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75Dawn of the Dead may depict the end of the world as we know it, but rarely has watching doom proved such a kick.
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75Romero's satire is largely replaced by a sardonic gallows humor (the zombie-shooting contest is as funny as it is grotesque), but otherwise it's a bloody entertaining zombie apocalypse.
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70First time director Zack Snyder has done an amazing job of creating a sense of doom and dread while sprinkling it with some wicked humor and amazing music.
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67Snyder’s film isn't likely to be considered a classic 20 years down the road like Romero's film is, but it's a winningly extreme episode in the ongoing adventures of Zombie and Harriet. (And stick around while the end credits roll: The film isn't over 'til it's over.)
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63Overall, this Dead is zippier than 1995's retake on "Village of the Damned" and somewhat less junky than the recent remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
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60It is, like most, an unnecessary remake, but the new, digitally boosted Dawn of the Dead brings it on with a 10-minute overture that might be the most upsetting tin-can apocalypse modern movies have ever seen.
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50When there's a whole mess of zombie killing to be done, who cares about reflective writing or that time-wasting element of suspense?
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50Horror buffs will find plenty of split-second suspense and in-your-face carnage, while others will scramble for the exit as quickly as the characters race away from their apocalyptic foes.
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50It's mindless entertainment, so take it or leave it.
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50The movie is weak on attempts at survivalist philosophy (anyone bit by a zombie is likely to become one). Even the religious overtones feel tinny and unpronounced.
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50This time the script makes scant metaphoric use of the mall. In fact, metaphors are generally in short supply here. Scares too.
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50The new Dawn of the Dead moves along with speed and slick visual style, but it's soulless and anonymous as -- well, a shopping mall.
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50A buzzed-up gloss on the original, it's entertaining -- if fundamentally shallow.
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50Sensational yet sadly unsatisfying.
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50More palatable than "Texas," Dawn also seems even less necessary, given how effectively the original was reworked last year in Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later."
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50The new version has its share of disturbing moments, but writer James Gunn and director Zack Snyder have stripped away the social satire of the original and put little in its place.
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38Despite a big budget, lots of technical flair and a good cast headed by Sarah Polley and Ving Rhames, it's mostly a bloody mess.
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30The eventual video game is bound to be a lot more fun -- and less slowed down by bad dialogue -- than this "Dead."
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20Swarming with zombies on both sides of the camera, the film is unrelentingly relentless, leaving no room for original director George Romero's wry satire on consumerism or his slow-paced, creeping undead.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 78 out of 96
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Mixed: 9 out of 96
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Negative: 9 out of 96
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Edc.1
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AdamW.10This movie is the pinnacle of epic zombie movies that are also funny.