Army of the Dead
Director: Zack Snyder
Writer: Zack Snyder, Shay Hatten, Joby Harold
Starring: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Matthias Schweighöfer, Richard Cetrone, Theo Rossi
Reason for watching: New release…plus I kinda like Zack Snyder now
Number of times I’ve watched it: first time viewing
***
Guys, I have never seen a 180 happen like this among film fans. Five years ago Zack Snyder was at the bottom of the barrel for this business. He had just delivered the most divisive superhero movie ever with Batman V. Superman, and he had just made Man of Steel before that which wasn’t exactly well-received either. But then Justice League comes out and for three and a half years all hell breaks loose online with his fans tweeting #ReleaseTheSnyderCut relentlessly. Eventually the studio caves and release his version with some reshoots. Fans love him. He gets Warner Brothers some more views. Now the guy can do no wrong. But during his off time, he decided to back to one of the most tried and true wells of the movie business: Zombies. And the goodwill just keeps on rolling for Mr. Snyder.
First of all, I gotta say how much I like the premise of this movie. After a zombie virus breaks out in Las Vegas, the city is walled off and quarantined as the military has no success trying to eliminate the creatures. But when a casino millionaire offers veteran Scot Ward (Dave Bautista) a chance to earn fifty million dollars by breaking into his underground casino fault and cleaning it out, it sounds like someone is going to break quarantine. The team is on a time crunch though as the US government has decided to nuke what’s left of the city and kill all the monsters. It sounds like a simple in and out mission right? I mean, they’re zombies. They just walk around aimlessly and eat anything that’s alive, right? NOPE! These zombies are organized and intelligent and not interested in having people encroach on their turf. It’s like these zombies leveled up from the creatures we saw in I am Legend. But Bautista just might be able to make it work with the right team, which includes an eccentric safe cracker, a cocky helicopter pilot (who was a late replacement of the original actor, but you could never tell if you didn’t know), a few hired guns, and some good friends.
Znyder’s technical style really lends itself to good use here, especially in the open scenes of the movie as the world falls into place or during battles with bullets flying left and right. The action feels tense and immersive. And there is plenty of different action sequences and interesting settings to pair them with. Probably my favorite one is when our safecracker and his bodyguard have to figure out how to get to the vault without being hurt by the various traps laid out for them. So the heroes use the only body available to take the heat: a zombie. It’s hilarious to watch this zombie get ripped to pieces as he’s hit by a hail of bullets, toxic darts, and two walls slamming together.
I’ll get on this movie for the plot holes though. I have to get into some spoiler territory here so take a hike if you actually care. At one part Scott’s daughter Kate, who came into the city with them, runs off on her own to save a trapped friend who came in days before Scott’s heist began. And somehow evades a horde of zombies to get into one of the destroyed hotels. SOMEHOW SHE ISN’T SNIFFED OUT AND EATEN BY THESE ZOMBIES!!! Granted, we don’t see how she escapes them (probably because that would be too ridiculous to film). But then, Kate gets to this hotel where her friend is trapped and manages to help her get to the roof and escape in the helicopter with the rest of the crew. Nice ending except it doesn’t make sense BECAUSE THE FRIEND MAGICALLY DISAPEERS FROM THE MOVIE ALTOGETHER AS THE CREW MAKES THEIR ESCAPE BEFORE THE NUKE HITS!! I’m not kidding. I went back and watched the ending of this movie, and this friend of Kate, who is the reason why what’s left of the team almost doesn’t make it out alive, is shown alive before the nuke hits the city and then once the helicopter crashes (SPOILER ALERT if you didn’t know that the force from a nuke can knock over a helicopter flying away) she is never shown again in the movie. No body. Nothing. It’s a weird note to end on..
UNTIL SCOTT’S FRIEND VANDEROHE (Omari Hardwick) IS SHOWN WALKING OUT OF THE NUKED-OUT VEGAS WITH A FEW BAGS OF MONEY!! No matter the radiation or the heat a nuke would cause. This dude apparently hid in the fault under the casino Scott’s crew was robbing. He walks out of the nuked-out city, hijacks a car to get out of the quarantine zone, and then rents a private jet to fly to Mexico…ONLY FOR HIM TO DISCOVER ON THE PLANE THAT HE WAS BITTEN!! There’s no consistency to how quickly a zombie bite can turn someone in this movie. The general thoughts and story of the movie make sense in general, but this movie definitely loses a few points when it comes to the plot holes.
6/10
Until I see another one