'Army of the Dead' Review
R: For strong bloody violence, gore and language throughout, some sexual content and brief nudity/graphic nudity
Runtime: 2 Hrs and 28 Minutes
Production Companies: The Stone Quarry
Distributor: Netflix
Director: Zack Snyder
Writer: Zack Snyder
Cast: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighöfer, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tig Notaro, Raúl Castillo, Huma Qureshi, Garret Dillahunt
Release Date: May 21, 2021
When Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), a former zombie war hero who’s now flipping burgers on the outskirts of the town he calls home, is approached by casino boss Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada), it’s with the ultimate proposition: break into the zombie-infested quarantined zone to retrieve $200 million sitting in a vault beneath the strip before the city is nuked by the government in 32 hours. Having little left to lose, Ward takes on the challenge, assembling a ragtag team of experts for the heist. With a ticking clock, a notoriously impenetrable vault, and a smarter, faster horde of Alpha zombies closing in, only one thing’s for certain in the greatest heist ever attempted: survivors take all.
Now that he has finally risen out of his superhero phase, director Zack Snyder has gone back to what put him on the map in the first place: zombies. But this time he's telling an original story that combines the likes of a zombie flick and a heist. Honestly, I was hesitant to watch this because I’ve had my Snyder fill for the year with his four-hour (which felt like forever) cut of Justice League. Yet, to my dismay, Army of the Dead might be the most badass and exhilarating Zack Snyder film since 300.
If there’s anything that Zack Snyder achieved with Army of the Dead, it’s making heist movies — a genre that has gotten so redundant Rick and Morty made an entire episode deconstructing its tropes — fun again. Heist movies have been so mediocre recently, prioritizing style over substance and getting by on direction (Baby Driver) or the ensemble (Ocean’s 8), but still falling under the same tropes. Army of the Dead doesn’t revitalize the genre, but at least it adds a fresh layer that makes it undeniably fun. While it has all the components of your typical heist movie (the big lead assembling his crew, the obligatory montage of how the plan is supposed to play out before it goes abysmally wrong, the expected doublecross), there are a variety of innovative ideas that make this original concept stand out.
Snyder discarded the majority of his slow-motion flair to focus more on playing with scale and size in the most bloody and brutal way imaginable. From the intense, gory, and downright captivating cold open that displays how an unfortunate zombie outbreak took over all of Las Vegas, this movie’s hard R-rating relishes in violence and does not fuck around. I know bloody zombie flicks aren’t anything new, but it had been a long time since I’d seen one done in an effective manner where each onscreen death is utterly shocking.
Zack Snyder has gotten significantly better as a big-budget filmmaker who can make action sequences so fun. All of the set pieces and sequences of horror/action were tense and well-choreographed. Netflix has deep pockets and it shows. This film feels like your regular Hollywood action blockbuster in both length and visual quality. Everyone is being heavily influenced by video games these days with these so-called “original concepts”. John Krasinski got a The Last of Us-type horror film franchise and I swear Army of the Dead took influence from Dead Rising, especially with the tone and setting. The film doesn’t take itself too seriously, for most of the time there are genuine bursts of humor that can be credited to the charismatic cast and their chemistry. While this film boasts a massive ensemble, nearly every character gets time in the sun to look like a badass in their own right.
I truly adored the production design of this apocalyptic Vegas wasteland. The zombies were massive in numbers, so to see them occupy spaces like an abandoned apartment full of roaches makes you genuinely tense. From establishing overview shots, you feel like it’s something straight out of an open-world zombie survival game… like Dead Rising. I love how these zombies operate in their own type of hierarchical society. Somebody watched the alternate ending of I Am Legend and got inspired. The zombies are a community who have their own code of conduct and answer to a king who has his queen, and God help anyone who dared to disrespect his queen.
All the set pieces stand out because Snyder truly crafted something that is epic in scale to keep viewers hooked. Since this is also screening in theaters, I’ll say that it looks absolutely incredible on a big screen than at home. It feels like you are watching an honest-to-god summer blockbuster. It deserves to be seen in a large format just to digest the level of craft that went into the production of all the locations the characters have to navigate. I wouldn’t be surprised if this got a Best VFX Oscar nomination next year, mostly because of Tig Notaro replacing that bitch-ass man who we will not mention. She is integrated seamlessly into the picture and steals the show whenever she’s onscreen. Even if you didn’t know about her casting and the reshoots that occurred in order to get her into the film, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
The film has a massive ensemble of quirky characters who all play their own type of role. You have the leader, the action hero, the badass, the comic relief pilot, the government man, the muscle, the tour guide, the neurotic technician, etc. I genuinely had fun seeing their dynamics play out, which led to a lot of comedic and sometimes heartfelt moments (you will write fanfics about Omari Hardwick and Matthias Schweighöfer’s characters, I swear). They’re all typically one-note but in a movie like this, all you need is a bunch of personalities rather than fleshed-out individual characters. It almost reminded me of the ensemble from Disney’s Atlantis. They weren’t necessarily memorable but they were diverse and cool. However, despite this ensemble of personalities, the film is weighed down whenever it focuses on the leader Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) and his issues with his estranged daughter Kate (Ella Purnell), who joins this death mission with him for her own convoluted reasons. Much of the film’s second act lollygags due to it enacting a father-daughter reconnection arc that is generic and sticks out like a sore thumb pacing-wise. You are already having such a fun time seeing these characters fight zombies and trying to get this heist done, but whenever it cuts to Scott and Kate, you start to feel the burnout as it disrupts the tone and the flow of the pacing. I get the intention behind this subplot but when the stakes get higher as the film progresses, you just become utterly frustrated. Mind you, the movie is already TWO AND A HALF GODDAMN HOURS LONG!
I think I Zackholm Syndrome’d myself into being fine with bloated runtimes, but man, the sentimental moments bogged the film down severely. It's overly long and draining, albeit fun to watch for the most part. Army of the Dead might be the most badass action blockbuster of the summer, which is bizarre to say because it’s a Netflix movie and it slaps so hard with an audience in a theater. It’s a really fun escape that captures the magic of the summer blockbuster with great action set pieces, killer inventiveness, a massive scale, and has such a badass ensemble, it’s so hard not to recommend. Whether you see it on the big screen or at home, you’ll have an absolute blast. Jesus, I’m liking Zack Snyder movies on main again? Who am I?
