ARMY OF THE DEAD - REVIEW

Army Of The Dead is a zombie heist movie directed by Zack Snyder and co-written by Snyder, Shay Hatten, and Joby Harold, based on an original story by Snyder. The film stars an ensemble cast consisting of Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighöfer, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tig Notaro, Raúl Castillo, Huma Qureshi, and Garret Dillahunt.

The movie is about a group of mercenaries who commit a money heist in the casino located in the quarantine sin city Las Vegas, where the zombies are walled off following the zombie outbreak.

The timing of this movie release could not have been better. To think about it, it is a movie about a zombie outbreak released during the second year of the COVID outbreak.

The movie opens up with a military convoy transporting a secret container, which is damaged and opened after the accident; caused by a newlywed couple driving on the highway. It is discovered that they were carrying a zombie. This scene is followed by the outbreak montage scene with the song “Viva Las Vegas”, which I think was cool and did the perfect job of setting up this world of the zombie outbreak for us viewers. The idea of a zombie heist movie looks great on paper but falls short in execution, even though the action scenes are good and the acting is on point, the writing is where it falls flat.

Dave Bautista who is the main lead doesn’t get much credit for acting but look at his acting career, he has played so many different roles in so many different movies for example; Specter, Guardians of the galaxy, Blade Runner, and so on. That man can act.

Again it’s not the aesthetics of the movie that pulls the movie back, it’s its writing. Let me explain how; take for instance the characters; you barely know anything about them or their motives. I know you’re going to say it’s a heist movie, so it is implied that the characters care about the money and you’re right they care about the money at least most of them. But what I mean is, these characters are pretty shallow you don’t know their history, what makes them tick, and most importantly why should you care about the character. The characters are so shallow that you can define the characters in just one line. This is what happens when there are too many characters in a movie and it becomes impossible to give each one a character development. The only reason Marvel Avengers, which is another movie with a group of main characters, was successful is because they set up the characters and their back-story in their origin movies, and those movies took time to explore them.

Another issue with the movie is its runtime; it is a bit too long, which is unnecessary. Some scenes can be completely removed and still not affect the movie in any way. By no means have I had issues with long movies, but I only love them when it makes sense.

Talk about representation, kudos to Zack Synder for the casting choices, we get to see actors from India, Japan, Mexico, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Also, there is strong female characters representation, unlike most movies where female characters are shown as a damsel in distress.

Another thing I want to talk about is the reshoots in the movie, which you will barely even notice. The character of Marianne Peter, previously played by Chris D'Elia, was replaced by Tig Notaro. These reshoots do not affect the movie in any way.

Conclusion:

Army Of The Dead is a guilty pleasure movie that you can sit back and watch. It delivers on what it promised gore violence, zombie army, action scenes, and whippy comedy. Another good thing about the movie is its representation. Also, you get to see strong female characters who are not a damsel in distress. It falls flat on writing, character development, and the movie drags for a bit too long.

Score: 7/ 10