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88I greatly prefer this cleverly sustained and efficiently relentless remake to the '73 edition. It is lean and simple.
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The big difference between Mr. Romero's film and Mr. Eisner's--which is so intelligent you fear the fanboys will scatter--is that Mr. Eisner never gives us the military's point of view. All we know is what David and Judy and Russell know, which for a long time isn't much. And The Crazies is all the scarier for it.
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75You may not remember The Crazies in a month, but you'll have a grand time watching it.
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75Does what an exploitation movie should: It gets in, it scares you silly, and it gets out, all while playing fair by the audience.
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70Part zombie movie, part apocalyptic bioterror, part military conspiracy thriller, the refit hybrid doesn't stint on the visceral kicks demanded by contemporary audiences while remaining reasonably true to those Romero roots.
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70A lot of fun for horror fans, a nice little jaunt through paranoia and conspiracy theories.
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70Despite a midfilm lull of his own, Eisner stages a series of nifty action sequences, nearly all of which feature a moment of surprise, as well as gruesome wit.
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70It lacks the fevered sincerity (and the political timeliness) of Romero's original, but it's tightly scripted, cleverly cast, consistently scary, occasionally funny--everything you could ask from a well-made and completely unnecessary remake.
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70Delivers the essential suspense goods with overall skill and a modicum of intelligence.
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While it loses the charm of Romero's low-budget clunkiness, it is in all other regards superior. Unfortunately, it's not better than "28 Days Later...," which is close enough to count as an unofficial remake.
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63A perfectly competent genre film in a genre that has exhausted its interest for me, the Zombie Film.
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63Olyphant has a cool, amiable vibe, kind of postmodern Jimmy Stewart, while Mitchell brings intelligence and quietude to yet another role that doesn't deserve such consideration.
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63Familiar B-movie fare, but it's also lively fun and presented with well-paced flair.
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63The Crazies is imperfect but it's made with a degree of assurance that will limit fidgeting and keep most horror-lovers involved for a majority of its running length.
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60Unlike Romero's film, what's missing is a trenchant sense of connection to our historical moment.
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60An entertaining fright movie that's crazy fun and full of genuine scares.
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60It's an efficient thriller, with scare weapons ranging from the primitive (a pitchfork) to the apocalyptic (an A bomb). The acting is only horror-film-functional, and you might wish that our trio of renegades knew a few basic laws of the genre.
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58The crazies themselves could be a lot more terrifying. Without the rotting ickiness of proper zombies, they just seem like methed-out Iowans looking for a fix. That's scary, but not scary enough.
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What's disappointing about The Crazies, though, is the lack of care that Eisner and screenwriters Scott Kosar and Ray Wright put into their film's atmosphere. There's little in the way of Romero-esque dread; Eisner substitutes a grim lack of humor and frequent splashes of gore.
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50It's been not so much remade as restrained – tamed and dumbed-down and with any sharp political edges safely filed off.
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50After "Zombieland," The Crazies struggles to find novelty and laughs, and must battle the overwhelming sense that we've been here, seen this too often and too recently to experience any real surprises.
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50To call The Crazies the most original horror film in a long while only serves to point out just how lousy mainstream, studio-released horror has become. It's a solid thriller, sure, but there's precious little in it that hasn't been seen countless times before, and in the end it plays it safe … by not playing it safe.
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50Here's what I can say for sure about the humanoid attackers in the new version of The Crazies: They're not very interesting.
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The Crazies only ever amounts to genre-regimented madness.
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Mr. Romero is executive producer of the new film. Unfortunately, it doesn't have his style or sense of humor.
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50Poor distribution doomed the original movie, though Romero has stuck around long enough to serve as executive producer of this respectable update by Breck Eisner.
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40The incoherence is made all the more disappointing because Eisner displays a great deal of raw talent for the genre's tone and set pieces.
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38Even for a horror movie, The Crazies is a bore, and we're talking about the most boring genre this side of dysfunctional-family indie drama.
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Eisner has almost nothing on his mind, no political rumblings, nothing behind the urge to upgrade vintage trash.
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20Has warmed-over chills and a muddled, zombie-like execution.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 19 out of 24
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Mixed: 5 out of 24
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Negative: 0 out of 24