The Dead Don't Die review

The Dead Don’t Die

Characters:

‘The Dead Don’t Die’ (Jarmusch, 2019) is one of the most disappointing films I’ve seen this summer. How can the whole cast of actors that are amazing be so bad and boring? One of the weaknesses of the film was the poor acting, even with such a powerful cast of talented actors like Bill Murray (Ghostbusters), Tom waits, Adam Driver (Star Wars, 2015,2017,2019) and even RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan, it still lacks. I don’t know if the actors where told by the director to play the characters with no emotion and act dead but it does not work in favor of the film. I understand that this zombie satire is supposed to be funny, but it isn’t. while watching I only laugh a couple of times and the rest of audience did the same. The comedy is hit or miss but mostly was just miss and was also awkward.  

Plot and storytelling:

At some points the film was boring and some scenes don’t add anything to the plot. The story follows different characters and how they deal with zombies coming back from the dead. However, some of the characters ever don’t add anything to the plot or are forgotten. For example, three kids escape from a juvenile prison and then we never see them again, we don’t know if they survived or not. Another problem with the plot and storytelling is the ending, it’s confusing and has a message that’s not clear. The message felt shoehorned last minute and wasn’t fully developed. A good example of a zombie film with a good, thought out message was ‘Dawn Of The Dead’(George A. Romero, 1980) the film was set in a shopping mall and film was a statement about capitalism and how Americans are like zombies buy consumer goods. ‘The Dead Don’t Die’ and ‘Dawn of The Dead’ have a similar message but it’s the way the films conveyed this message differently. In ‘Dawn of The Dead’ the film is set in a shopping mall and the zombies in the mall represent a natural instinct of consumerism which the director strongly disagreed with this natural instinct, so he used the zombies to make fun of those types of people. However, in ‘The Dead Don’t Die’ the director quickly adds at the end a confusing message about how people now-a-days are acting like zombies because of modern life. You can argue that ‘The Dead Don’t Die’ has a more meaningful message but it’s the way the director addresses the message which makes it less of an impact than ‘Dawn of The Dead’.       

Overall, don’t watch ‘The Dead Don’t Die’ (Jarmusch, 2019) and watch ‘Dawn of The Dead’ (George A. Romero).’Dawn of The Dead’ is more entertaining and has better acting, however it is sadly too long and can be shortened