Army of the Dead

 

Army of the Dead is a zombie heist movie. Set in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries are tasked with infiltrating a quarantine zone where a zombie outbreak occurred, to rob a casino. This is Synder’s second zombie movie but not a sequel to the original, Dawn of the Dead. There is however, a prequel in the works and possibly its own sequel. I was very excited to see Army of the Dead because I am a huge Snyder fan, I liked the diverse star power and the theme seemed interesting.

The cinematography and CGI were well done. Synder is known for the slow motion action sequences that I particularly enjoy. To me they add a heightened excitement and sometimes anxiety to the scene. The hair, makeup and costumes were creative, scary and unique but obnoxiously bloody.

From start to finish the film was high octane and action packed. Unfortunately, there were a ton of plot holes and the ideas around how zombie infection happens in this film was inconsistent. Additionally, the revealed purpose of the movie didn’t make sense compared to original presented idea and a lot of the twists and turns were predictable.

For the cast, I thought that Dave Bautista did well leading this pack of tough men and women, especially given the terrible script he had to work with. I’ve now seen Omari Hardwick in quite a few different roles, and I like him in this action genera. He worked well off of the enormous presence of Bautista. Theo Rossi, has defiantly been typecast at this point but he always plays his part convincingly. Tig Notaro was a surprise addition, as she was not originally in the cast, but was added in post-production. For her to do all of her lines talking to a green screen, I thought that was pretty impressive.

The script was not well written, a lot of the ideas were done before, unoriginal and played out. The comedy was dry, which I know is Notaro’s style, but not really for me. The character development was weak. The father daughter plot felt like they were pulling at straws because it lacked depth. If it was going to be so basic, they would have done the audience a service by pulling it out all together. For the rest of the cast, the character development was lazy and not enough to connect to any of them.

In the end, this movie was a disappointment. I was really hoping for something more unpredictable and definitely more understandable. I hope that if Snyder gets a sequel that he expands more on the character development and comes up with a plot that makes more sense.