Reviews

This movie was extremely well paced -- there was very good character development without excessive dialog. The story is exciting and thrilling: a modernized Rear Window. The acting was very solid, and every actor, major or minor, sold their part. Shia LeBeouf was a likable protagonist, Carrie-Anne Moss did a great job in her role as the mother, and David Morse played an exceedingly ominous and creepy neighbor. The climax is very suspenseful, although it did contain a few minor lapses in rational behavior by both the heroes and the villain, but I suppose that could be written off as desperation. Overall, it was refreshing to see a well-paced thriller with great suspense, humor, and character development.

I was expecting to really hate this movie. The trailer seemed stupid and full of over-the-top slapstick physical comedy. However, I fairly enjoyed the movie when I did finally see it, and found it to be occasionally very funny. As expected, the physical comedy mostly fell flat (although I think it might appeal to small children), but there were moments when Steve Martin was genuinely hilarious. This movie was not as funny as the early Pink Panthers but is easily more enjoyable than the last few in the series (which were terrible). It was nice to see Steve Martin bring his own touch to the role of Clouseau, which was similar and yet distinguishably different from Peter Seller's brilliant interpretation.

I saw this movie for the first time a few months ago, and I was less than impressed. The acting is uniformly terrible, and the dialog is not particularly good and, at times, laughably bad. The basic premise and story are decent, but the interesting themes and ideas (the power struggles that occur at the breaking point of civilization) behind the movie are dealt with rather clumsily. The gore, which I hear was quite shocking for its time, is not that affecting today but is nonetheless well done. Overall, Day of the Dead's concept had potential but was badly executed (I recommend Ghosts of Mars instead of this movie since it has similar themes and is at least half-decent in terms of acting and direction). This movie is a disappointment since Night of the Living Dead was such a delight. I would normally give this movie about 4/10, but since it is a Zombie Movie, it earns a bonus point. 5/10