This review marks one of the interesting conflicts I run into as the ZRC’s chief media watchdog. There are quite a few Anti-Zombie projects out there that, putting the Anti-Zombiism aside, are clearly works of talented people. ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and ‘Dawn of the Dead’ in particular show that George Romero really knows how to frame a shot, to make things visually interesting. ’28 Days Later’ can be quite haunting and surreal. ‘Shaun of the Dead’ has some very funny moments; you get the idea. My point is that the ZRC’s focus requires us to put Zombie Friendliness or lack thereof first, before other artistic/literary concerns, and sometimes that means condemning in very strident terms something that, if only it wasn’t about defaming the Undead, might be a really enjoyable piece of art.

More rarely, we have the project that, although really Zombie Friendly, is, aside from Zombie Rights concerns, pretty terrible. It’s a nice problem to have, but it is a problem.

Which brings us to ‘Dylan Dog: Dead of Night’. First? It’s definitely Zombie Friendly, although the main Zombie character is relegated to sidekick status, his plight and Unlife are treated with a very sympathetic hand.

Second: it’s not a great movie. At all.

‘Dylan Dog’ is slow, unimaginative and feels derivative of so many other creative properties that you’ll swear you’ve seen this somewhere before. Shades of ‘Buffy’, ‘Angel’, ‘Underworld’, ‘Hellboy’ and countless other works will pass before your eyes as you sit in the theatre. And honestly? As entertainment goes, all of the above, even Underworld (though not its odious sequel) are better, more creative and interesting projects.

I expressed some excitement over this movie when I saw the trailer a while back, but trailers can lie. Truthfully, many of the problems present in the film are also there in the trailer if you look harder: the reliance on uncreative, not particularly funny comedy, the Zany Sidekick, and Brandon Routh’s acting, which, btw, is so wooden you could carve it into toothpicks.

It is time for an official moratorium on mocking Keanu Reeves’ range as a thespian; Brandon Routh far surpasses him. Keanu might walk through a scene emitting no detectable emotion, but Routh is a pathos black hole, sucking humanity out of the actors and actresses around him and emitting only a vague sarcasm.

Dear Cthulhu, he might be the male Milla Jovovich.

He narrates the film too, which doubles your narcoleptic fun.

Now, about the Zombies in Dylan Dog: there’s a surprising amount of sympathy here for Zombies. They’re depicted as people, albeit Undead ones, who have special dietary needs and a constant requirement for relatively fresh replacement parts. Of the three supernatural groups of people in the movie, Zombies seem at first to get the short end of the stick: basically no superpowers and a constant fight against decomposition. This is in line with what many critics say about Zombies, that they lack the personality and magnetism of, say, Vampires.

However as the movie lurches (no pun intended) onward, you see that in the Dylan Dog-o-verse, Zombies are your best bet amongst the Undead. Vampires seem prone to scheming and crime, selling their own blood as an addictive drug; Werewolves (here considered Undead despite having children and aging and so on) have violent, barely manageable tempers that turn them into raving beasts. Zombies are just… folks. Folks who have to use cleaning products like soap.

Bonus shout-out to having a Zombie support group in the film; shades again of someone else’s work, the Fresh Start Club from Discworld by Terry Pratchett, but hey; at least it plays fairly well.

Sam Huntington as a Zombie, on the other hand, makes me want to throttle someone or something. ‘Scene-stealing’ is code for ‘annoys the living daylights out of you’, here.

Sidekicks. Why do people think the Zany Sidekick is funny? They’re not.

Anita Briem rounds out the triad of main characters by desperately scrambling to show even less emotion than Routh, and almost succeeding.

The plot involves a scheme to bring about the apocalypse or something, and no points will be awarded for guessing if Dylan and his Zombie pal avert it or not, whether Dylan overcomes his trauma and goes back to being a defender of all Undead-kind instead of a burnt out private detective (is there any other kind in the movies?) etc. Totally by the numbers.

To recap: Dylan Dog is Zombie Friendly, but it isn’t good. Save the money, wait for it on cable, and buy a Terry Pratchett book instead.

Btw, on Rotten Tomatoes Dylan Dog is getting a 4% Fresh Rating. Ouch.

Tags: Movies, ZRC Reviews

This entry was posted by John Sears on Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 at 12:05 am and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.