Do You Like Your Whole Movie Spelled Out For You? Then You'll Love The Crazies (Review)

This review contains spoilers.



Film Score: ⭐⭐1/2

Released by Overture (now Anchor Bay)

Release Date: February 26th, 2010

Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Danielle Panabaker

Written by Scott Kosar and Ray Wright

Directed by Breck Eisner

Rated R (bloody violence and language)

David Dutton: You know what?

Russell Clank: What?

David Dutton: We're in trouble.

The Crazies is a remake of the cult classic of the same name. The original was directed by George A. Romero. This one is directed by Breck Eisner, who did that movie Sahara with Mathew whatshisname. I have no idea how this movie stacks up to the original because I haven't seen it. I have been meaning to watch it but other things have gotten in the way.

You see I am not the biggest fan of Romero. I can appreciate his Dead movies, but can only take so much of them. His other movies I have either not seen or thought were pretty bad. I understand that a lot of his movies have a political satire to them and I can dig that, but I think that a lot of his movies are just subpar.

That being said, I went into this version without knowing much about it. I would like to say that the movie is much deeper than the trailers made it out to be, but I can't. In fact they pretty much give away the ending of the movie in the trailers. When I saw a truck driving away from a big explosion I hoped and prayed that there would be something after that, that that wasn't the end to the movie. I hate to tell you but my hopes were dashed.

The story is pretty simple: a small town is besieged when the towns people start acting weird. We know it is a small town because there is an onscreen map that tells us what the name of the town is and what the population is. I could have done without this map, but it does lead you to be that there is a bigger conspiracy going on. Anyway, during a baseball game, the type of baseball game where the entire town shows up, a man walks onto the outfield carrying a shotgun. The sheriff, played with the always clenched jaw by Timothy Olyphant, tries to talk the man into dropping the gun, but ends up shooting him instead.

Soon enough more and more people start acting weird. A man locks his wife and kid in a closet and then sets the house on fire. The man is then jailed and stares blankly out into space. The sheriff knows something odd is going on but doesn't do too much investigation because guys wearing army gear and gas masks puts everyone in the town on buses and takes them to camps. Here they seperate the people who the army think are healthy from the people they believe to be infected. Olyphant is seperated from his wife who the army believes is infected.

From here the movie becomes kind of like Cloverfield. Not with the home video style camera work, just how the movie progresses. In Cloverfield the characters had to get out of the city before it is nuked. Here its the same thing only there is no giant monster. Olyphant saves his wife and tries to find a car that they can use to get out, but the army has booted all of the cars. I found this to be kind of funny. Why would they go and boot all of the cars if they were going to nuke the town anyway? I know its because someone who is hiding could get out of town and spread the infection. But why boot the cars? The infected person could just walk away and get out. The army sets up no road blocks.

Another thing that I found kind of funny was a scene where the army guys are attacked by a bunch of towns people in a pickup truck. The truck comes barreling through the fences that the army has set up to contain the infected. The army shoots back and kills the occupants of the truck. Then they get into their helicopters and leave. The infected get out and the army does nothing to stop them. They just flee. I like to think that if this country was in trouble or under attack that the army would stay and fight. Here they just leave.

I liked the movie to a certain point. The movie doesn't waste any time with character development and gets right into the action. In some movies I like this, but here it would have been nice to see the small town before all this happens. I like movies about small towns. They inspire hope in me, but why place the movie in a small town if we are not going to see how the town works and what the people are like? This movie could have been set almost anywhere and we would have gotten the same results.

Also there is a needless scene where everything is explained to us. Why do we need to know this? It comes so late in the movie that it only serves those in the audience that like to have everything spelled out for them. Had the filmmakers taken this scene out it would have not effected the outcome of the movie. It would have left the whole thing a mystery. The audience then would have to come up with their own conclusions. But why would the common movie audience want to discuss their own theories about a movie? That is just crazy. Like the people in this movie.

The Crazies is a serviceable horror movie that contains a few scares, some nice gory moments, and a downbeat of an ending. I would recommend this movie to those who like things like that. To everyone else I can only say that if you saw the trailer then you saw the movie.