Romero essentially created the zombie genre in "Night of the Living Dead" and perfected the formula in the first sequel "Dawn of the Dead", but after about 40 years of retelling the exact same story he has sadly lost whatever it was that made him great.
A group of young film makers get caught up in the obligatory zombie outbreak and one of them has the bright idea to film it all for prosperity. Stupidity ensues.
The first thing to grate on the nerves are the obnoxious, dry, monotone voice overs from the painfully unsympathetic, unlikeable lead female. She spouts several boring, lengthy monologues about the suckiness of her situation and how important this film is to watch, even though her character in the film incessantly complains about people filming the events.
Speaking of irritatingly whiny characters, the film is filled to the brim with them. Not one, not a single one of the characters make it to the end of the film with out being grossly incompetent and obnoxious. Seriously, not one. At one point the lead female tells a bunch of national guard deserters to either giver her supplies or kill her. What the hell kind of stupid option is that? OK, fine...BANG!
Which brings us to the story and it's unending weakness. Aside from the already mentioned moronic ultimatum, the story tosses a few more idiotic decisions at the audience. Like when one of the group is being chased by a zombie and the jerk filming it actually stops to comment on how he was right when he said that zombies should shamble, not run. OK, we get it, Romero doesn't like fast zombies.
Ultimately, Romero is the films greatest weakness. It feels like a sad case of old dog, new tricks. Trying to catch on the Blair Witch/Cloverfield train, Romero apparently decided the zombie genre could due with a docudrama take on the material; what sucks about this is that in principal, he's right. The idea of the film is sound, it's the execution that falters. Romero, a product of '60s, tries the connect with the you-tube generation without any real success.
The final slap in the face is the expected political message. Romero has the audacity the chastise people who enjoy violent entertainment when his entire film career has been built on violent films. It isn't deep, it isn't insightful, it's just insulting.
Despite all my ranting on the film, I still found it in me to give it a 3 star rating instead of a 1; zombies are inherently awesome and their is just enough gory carnage to warrant a curiosity viewing for die hard fans of the genre.
3/10
A group of young film makers get caught up in the obligatory zombie outbreak and one of them has the bright idea to film it all for prosperity. Stupidity ensues.
The first thing to grate on the nerves are the obnoxious, dry, monotone voice overs from the painfully unsympathetic, unlikeable lead female. She spouts several boring, lengthy monologues about the suckiness of her situation and how important this film is to watch, even though her character in the film incessantly complains about people filming the events.
Speaking of irritatingly whiny characters, the film is filled to the brim with them. Not one, not a single one of the characters make it to the end of the film with out being grossly incompetent and obnoxious. Seriously, not one. At one point the lead female tells a bunch of national guard deserters to either giver her supplies or kill her. What the hell kind of stupid option is that? OK, fine...BANG!
Which brings us to the story and it's unending weakness. Aside from the already mentioned moronic ultimatum, the story tosses a few more idiotic decisions at the audience. Like when one of the group is being chased by a zombie and the jerk filming it actually stops to comment on how he was right when he said that zombies should shamble, not run. OK, we get it, Romero doesn't like fast zombies.
Ultimately, Romero is the films greatest weakness. It feels like a sad case of old dog, new tricks. Trying to catch on the Blair Witch/Cloverfield train, Romero apparently decided the zombie genre could due with a docudrama take on the material; what sucks about this is that in principal, he's right. The idea of the film is sound, it's the execution that falters. Romero, a product of '60s, tries the connect with the you-tube generation without any real success.
The final slap in the face is the expected political message. Romero has the audacity the chastise people who enjoy violent entertainment when his entire film career has been built on violent films. It isn't deep, it isn't insightful, it's just insulting.
Despite all my ranting on the film, I still found it in me to give it a 3 star rating instead of a 1; zombies are inherently awesome and their is just enough gory carnage to warrant a curiosity viewing for die hard fans of the genre.
3/10