Army of the Dead

A mere two months after his director's cut of Justice League hit streaming services, filmmaker Zack Snyder returns with Army of the Dead, another troubled film that got saved thanks to the involvement of a streaming studio. (This time, it's Netflix, rather than HBOMax.) A follow up to his 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake (which remains Snyder's best film in my eyes to this day), this one has been languishing in "Development Hell" at Warner Bros. since around 2007 in one form or another, and is just now seeing the light of day.

You don't have to glance at its nearly two and a half hour long running time to know that Snyder has some grand ambitions for his latest dive into the zombie movie genre pool.  He seems to be trying to give something for everyone here.  Aside from your standard Zombie Apocalypse setting, and the over the top blood and gore that goes hand-in-hand with it, he's also making a heist movie here.  And not just any heist movie, but one set in Las Vegas.  The immediate thought of Ocean's 11 directed by George A. Romero is probably better than anything the movie actually provides.  Not only that, the movie finds time for some hit and miss humor (the tone is much more fun here than in a lot of Snyder's recent work with superheroes), and even some tender father and daughter bonding moments.  He's definitely covering the bases here.  But is it enough?

Perhaps it's just me, but my personal cup has run over with zombies.  Between The Walking Dead, and the over-saturation the zombie genre has seen in pop culture in everything from movies, comics, TV and video games, I've gotten bored with the concept.  There's only so many interesting things you can do with zombies visually, and pretty much everything you can think of have been done.  Snyder obviously knows this, and while he makes a valiant effort here, he never quite leaves the shadow of the fact that we've seen it all before.  He does manage to keep a fairly relentless pace, which keeps the audience from growing restless, though thanks to its extended length, it still feels like its way too much.  Regardless, Snyder knows what kind of movie he wants to make, and coasts right through the required world and character building, so he can get to the big action set pieces.

In those opening moments, we see how the zombie outbreak initially started with a doomed military patrol having an unfortunate run-in with some rowdy newlyweds not paying attention to where they're driving.  This new outbreak happens to start right on the outskirts of Vegas, and during the film's opening credits (set to "Viva Las Vegas", naturally), we get to see the "City of Sin" fall and turn into a walled-off living hell.  The President of the United States is planning to nuke Vegas in order to wipe out all the undead, but before that can happen, a veteran of the zombie-human war by the name of Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) is approached by shady businessman Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada, making his second appearance in a film after last month's Mortal Kombat where he is woefully underused.)

It seems Tanaka has learned of a grand fortune buried in a vault under one of the abandoned casinos.  He wants Dave and a small team of specialists to go into zombie territory and get the millions before Vegas gets nuked off the map.  If they pull it off, Dave and his group are promised a share of the money, which is apparently all it takes for these guys to risk their lives venturing through streets where zombie white tigers roam.  The team consists of your usual meat-head soldiers, safe crackers, wise guys, and those with hidden motives.  Scott's daughter, Kate (Ella Purnell), is also along for the ride for her own reasons.  From there, the movie seldom if ever lets up for the next two hours or so, splashing as much blood and throwing in as many gory kills as the screenplay (written by Snyder and two others) will allow.

Considering the long road Army of the Dead took to becoming a reality, and the troubles it faced while being filmed during a pandemic, and having one of the actors removed after sexual assault allegations were made, so they had to CG a new actor (Tig Notaro) into the role of a helicopter pilot, the movie is probably better than you would expect.  Bautista makes for a likeable lead, and is able to sell both the kick-ass aspects, as well as the softer moments he must share with his daughter and their painful past together.  But it all comes back to the simple fact that the movie simply can't think of anything new to do with its monsters.  Not even the Vegas setting, or the addition of heist movie elements (which are not played up as much here as you might like), are enough to make this stand out from the literal hoard of other zombie-related stories we've gotten the past couple decades or so.  

If you're still big on zombie movies and their ilk, maybe this will speak to you more.  I got some mild enjoyment out of this, but not enough to warrant a recommendation, and certainly not enough to justify its excessive length.  Snyder has at least swung for the fences here, but in all honesty, I felt a bit burned out long before it was all over.

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