Dawn of the Dead (Blu-ray Disc, 2008)

In an age where everything — cars, information, adolescence, theatrical release windows — has been sped up to a startling degree, it stands to reason that even the pop-cultural symbol of torpidity, the zombie, would find its inner Carl Lewis. But while there has recently been a rash of films featuring zombies capable of running an undeniably fleeter 40 than possible in previous incarnations, it's important to give credit where credit is due by remembering that the sprinting dead concept was invented more than two decades ago by schlockmeister supreme Umberto Lenzi in Nightmare City (1980). What's more, his zombies could operate firearms, too. Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead has none of that film's ludicrous ingenuity, and, at worst, no particular reason for being. But it does gain a good deal of forward momentum in its slam-bang early going, which, for a while, goes a long way toward concealing the movie's thorough pointlessness. In fact, the film is never better than in its opening ten minutes of expertly staged mayhem wherein Ana (Sarah Polley), a young, overworked nurse, returns home after a grueling day of work, goes to bed with her boyfriend, and wakes up to a bona fide zombie holocaust. Her boyfriend is quickly, brutally dispatched and, just as quickly, joins the ranks of the undead in pursuit of her and every other sentient living thing. Without pause, Ana flees the suburbs, encountering sundry visions of hell before crashing her car and getting rescued by Kenneth (Ving Rhames), a behemoth of a man with little use for words or the company of others. Nonetheless, they band together, meeting up with another cluster of strangers along the way before reaching the shopping mall in which they hope to take refuge. Unfortunately, the complex is already home to a small group of gun-toting redneck security guards who'd rather not share their relative good fortune any further. Though they're soon overpowered, matters are quickly complicated by the arrival of more survivors, some of whom are wounded and close to death. Realizing that, without preemptive action, there will soon be zombies amongst them, impossibly tough decisions must be made which threaten to upset the tenuous harmony barely keeping these diverse individuals from each others' throats.