The Dead Don’t Die (Review)
The Dead Don’t Die Lurches About Like the Zombies it Features.
To be honest, I still have no idea what to think about The Dead Don’t Die. A lot of times zom-coms are made as loving homages to zombie movies, but I can’t tell if Jim Jarmusch is a fan of the genre or hates every about it. Sure, The Dead Don’t Die packs a pretty impressive cast, with the most A-list actors I’ve ever seen assembled for a zombie movie, but I never got the feeling that they were having a lot of fun with the roles they were given. To make matters worse, the plot is a meandering mess that tosses in a few twists that would make even M. Night Shyamalan cringe in embarrassment. Still, it does offer plenty of laughs and plenty of zombies. However, it’s hard to tell whether it’s a fun, absurdist romp or a complete mess of a movie.
The Dead Don’t Die features an incredible cast with the likes of Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Tom Waits, and many, many more in the roles of the citizens of a small town dealing with the dead rising. While this is definitely a movie about surviving the zombie apocalypse, The Dead Don’t Die is much more interested in the living characters in it, which isn’t a bad thing. The problem arises though as it continues to introduce more and more characters all played by actors that are instantly recognizable. This makes it hard to pick out who are the key players in the film and who is just a fun cameo. Don’t get me wrong, all the actors in the film do a great job and are incredibly memorable. However, when every character is memorable, how do you decide which ones stick with you in the end?
Of course, The Dead Don’t Die is hardly the first zom-com out there and follows in the footsteps of films like Shaun of the Dead, Dead Snow, and Zombieland. Unfortunately, that means that The Dead Don’t Die had its work cut out for it from the get-go. After all, fans of zombie movies, in general, can be pretty extreme and don’t take kindly to people mocking their favorite genre of film. That’s the primary problem I found with The Dead Don’t Die though. It’s impossible to tell if it’s a loving homage or flat out mockery. It’s filled with easter eggs, such as a trio of hipsters driving an identical Pontiac Lemans to the one seen in Night of the Living Dead. However, the film doesn’t simply offer this as a subtle wink at fans of the genre but instead makes sure no one misses it by having a character flat out tell you it’s the same car as in the movie. The same goes for a lot of the themes and elements seen in traditional zombie movies, especially when it comes to social commentary.
The Dead Don’t Die goes a little overboard with a lot of the underlying messages it’s trying to get across. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for social commentary in movies and I agreed with a lot of what The Dead Don’t Die was saying. However, it spreads itself thin with all the issues it attempts to take on. The premise of the film itself has to do with the dead rising due to Arctic fracking throwing the Earth off its axis (apparently that will cause zombies among other problems). Jarmusch takes aim at climate change deniers by repeatedly broadcasting a radio message in which some jackass pundit explains that Arctic fracking isn’t “a bad thing” even as the world gets more and more screwed up. He also goes after those “Make America Great Again” idiot with their ugly red hats. Oh, and like most zombie movies out there, he plays with the idea they’re a metaphor for mindless consumerism. The thing is that after a while it feels like the film is both swinging wild and beating a dead horse at the same time.
While The Dead Don’t Die is definitely funny, I don’t think it has the type of universal comedy that would please everyone. All the characters deliver their lines in a deadpan fashion that makes it hard to tell where each joke begins or ends. While it’s fun watching the characters take everything in stride, it undercuts some of the emotional beats of the film and keeps the audience at arm’s length. It also causes a few scenes to drag and makes the movie feel like it’s moving at a glacial pace. In other words, don’t expect the zombies to really start showing up until well over half way through the film. It also slowly evolves into a more and more absurd comedy as it goes which is fun but starts to negate everything that came earlier in the film.
Quite simply, The Dead Don’t Die is weird. It’s really weird. The thing is I’m not sure if it’s weird in a good way or not. It’s definitely a competently made film that takes rules of cinema into account and executes them well. However, it feels a bit like it had ADD and can’t seem to maintain its focus or even decide what kind of movie it really wants to be. On the one hand, I appreciate it, but on the other, I’m not sure how much I actually enjoyed it. At the end of the day, I can only say that The Dead Don’t Die is a pretty alright movie overall.
