| Kirkman and Darabont
have warned hardcore readers that this series will
not follow the storyline of the comics very much
thus even fanatics like me will be surprised. "The
Walking Dead" is very much a Darabont production
with top notch character actors (the sighting of
Jeffrey DeMunn as banner series character Dale is
very promising and exciting), a gritty desolate
tone, and specific attention to colors and
flourishes that make this feel nightmarish but down
to Earth. Deep down this series is just about human
beings communicating in the middle of hell, and
Darabont takes great pains in expressing the
humanity before the horror. You have to love the
symbolism of Shane bringing Rick flowers and Rick
awakening to the flowers now dead and rotted. Rick
Grimes is a conflicted sheriff's deputy, one who is
having problems with his wife and confides in his
friend Shane often. But a day of bickering about
spouses ends in gun fire as Rick is shot in the back
during a shootout and taken to the hospital. A few
hallucinations later, Rick awakens in his room
anxious for a nurse and tries to make sense of what
has happened and where everyone has gone. The
hospital shows signs of the aftermath of a war with
bloody foot prints, gun shot holes in the wall, and
the barricade holding back dozens of the walking
dead struggling to get out when they hear Rick's
breathing. Most of the first
episode revolves around Rick simply trying to come
to grips with this new world where he struggles to
look for signs of his wife and son, looks for a
reason behind the walking dead, and meets two kind
strangers, a father named Morgan and his son Dwayne who have managed to
survive the apocalypse based on evasion, wits, and
their bond.
Brit actor Lennie James (who I loved in "Snatch,"
and "Human Target") is fantastic and given the prime
spotlight here as Morgan the father coming to grips
with his own demons and helping Rick along with his
quest to admit to himself that this is reality and
he has to fight or become the horde. In the first
comics of the series Morgan has something of a bit
role and is a plot device allowing Rick clarity in
this madness, but here the episode is based around
Morgan's own parallel story riding alongside Rick's
where both are dad's with nothing left to lose
fighting for their families, and James knocks it out
of the park with an already fascinating character. Along the way
there is some wonderful zombie carnage and Darabont
never shies away from the blood and guts while
Gregory Nicotero and KNB provide some disturbing and
often gruesome special effects allowing the zombies
their own distinct personalities as well as their
own unnerving characteristics that pay tribute to
George A. Romero. Beyond James, Andrew Lincoln (the
guy with the signs in "Love Actually")
handles the role of Rick Grimes excellently giving
him a heroism and humility that will make him a
character people will root for and want to see fight
against the dead. Lincoln is given a heavy task of
portraying Grimes who, in the comic books, is the
most important aspect of the series offered up much
subtext, and back story, conflict, dueling
ideologies, crisis of morality, and extrapolation, and
Lincoln seems to be up to the task offering a
stunning performance. |
