It's not always easy to make a decent zombie movie, especially if your goal is to satisfy a new generation of horror fans as well as those who prefer the old rules of the genre. Nowadays, zombie movies come in all different shapes, styles, and levels of blood and gore. They are constantly evolving and have grown out of George Romero's cult classic Night Of The Living Dead. However, no matter what kind of zombie movie you make, you'll surely need a great story to go along with it too.
Army Of The Dead is the latest directorial effort by American filmmaker Zack Snyder who returns to the sub-genre that kick-started his career in 2004 with the remake of Romero's Dawn Of The Dead. It's a zombie flick mixed with heist action about a team of mercenaries that sneak into a Las Vegas casino quarantine zone in order to retrieve US$200 million but there's one big obstacle in their way -- zombies.
Army Of The Dead is currently number one on Netflix in the movies category and is getting rave reviews everywhere, especially on social media where users are discussing how fun of a watch it is. I'm personally not a big fan of CGI effects and the slow-motion sequences that Snyder is famous for but I knew I should give this movie a try. However, only an hour into the film, I had to stop and question if I was watching a different movie than everyone else.
The opening credit sequence teases a hilarious and ironic zombie romp set in Las Vegas and presents the backstory of a military convoy leaving Area 51 that meets an accident causing its zombie cargo to break free. This super zombie then bites the entire team of soldiers and runs towards Vegas then infecting the city, causing it to become walled off from the rest of the world. We see zombies quickly overrun the town and this sequence is everything you'd hope to see in a zombie heist movie. Unfortunately, what follows does not match the promise of that opening.
The film stars Dave Bautista as Scott Ward, a former mercenary and survivor of the zombie apocalypse that struck Vegas very early in the film. Scott is soon approached by a Japanese businessman, Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada), who hires him to smuggle $200 million out of a casino safe before Vegas is nuked by the government to wipe out the zombies. This forms the plot for the rest of the movie as Scott assembles a crew for the mission allowing audiences to get acquainted with all the quirky characters and a few important tagalongs.
The team of mercenaries in Army Of The Dead. NETFLIX
I appreciate the effort put in to build the environment not only in Vegas but the zombies themselves. It felt like a new take on the zombie genre that provides us with layered complexities about the undead. We've seen the classic mindless slow-walking zombies by Romero and sprinter zombies in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, however, in this film, there are also zombies that are smart -- they call them alpha zombies -- and in control of others. I also think the action, the gunfights and special effects were on point too. The blood and gore are extreme and intense and the make-up is just what we'd expect from this type of genre. Overall, the movie is pretty entertaining and although there are some cool moments, there are also many things holding it back from being great.
This movie is entertaining if you literally want action, slow-motion fight sequences against various kinds of the undead, and a lot of guns and explosions. If that sounds like something you're interested in, then go for it. But if you're also looking forward to seeing some good drama that makes sense or a driven story that keeps you engaged all the way through, you won't find that in Army Of The Dead. Everything you love or hate about Snyder's directorial style is fully on display here, from the epic action and gore shots to the tremendous slow-motion sequences that occasionally make the film feel dull and repetitive.
Then, there's also the issue of a very bloated runtime. The movie does not have to be two-and-a-half hours long. I can easily see about 25-30 minutes of this movie being cut. There are scenes that sometimes go a few frames longer than they really need to be and there are a few times where it feels like the information you're getting just isn't important. Moreover, some of the storylines are predictable and each character's behaviour doesn't make that much sense.
While this movie shows us that Dave Bautista can carry a film as an action hero who has an emotional side, the bad script and execution hold his performance back. Its attempt at being a drama turns out to be the weakest point in this movie, especially the relationship between Scott and his daughter Kate (Ella Purnell) that slows the story down from time to time. I felt that Kate in particular was an unnecessary character, especially since how she gets involved in the storyline just felt flat. Her whole motive of why she wants to be part of the heist crew just didn't work for me. I didn't buy the relationship with her dad, which was supposed to be a key driver of her character.
Army Of The Dead had some cool ideas and showed a lot of promise and the actors did their best in the action and stunt scenes but that alone can't change the fact that the script, the plot and editing isn't memorable. The movie may look cool on the surface and lure you in with potentially new twists in the zombie genre but it quickly devolves into just another undead shoot 'em up with disposable, forgettable stories and characters.
- Army Of The Dead
- Starring Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick
- Directed by Zack Snyder
- Now streaming on Netflix
