Zack Snyder’s more auteur-ish side as a director was always going to be controversial when it came to the comic book scene. The DC characters he’s worked with came pre-packaged with their own history and formulas that had worked for them for so long, so I can see where it’d be polarizing for someone new to take on all these different tonal approaches.
Army Of The Dead provides him his own playground with an original cast, and because of that it feels like he’s having a tad more fun here. Despite the graphic content and difficult losses the heroes here must endure, one still gets a sense of thrill and bloody escapism from it.
He’s turned Las Vegas, NV into a wasteland of flesh-eaters, thanks to a military convoy carrying top-secret zombie cargo from Area 51 accidentally crashing into some drunk newlyweds. The city is now such an uninhabitable death trap that the U.S. government has finally had enough of the whole thing, and is ready to drop a Fourth of July nuclear bomb on the former gambling capital. Dave Batista plays Scott, an ex-soldier in the Vegas zombie wars who is hired by a mysterious casino bigshot (Hiroyuki Sanada) to heist up to $200 million in cash from their vault, before the city is finally wiped off the map.
With a motley crew that includes former merc partners Maria (Ana de la Regura) and Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), the ace shooter Guzman (Mikey Castillo) who posts viral videos of their zombie kills, the snarky helicopter pilot Peters (Tig Notaro) and the nervous but capable safe-cracker Dieter (Matthias Schweighofer), this mission logically should go off without a hitch.
But it wouldn’t be that interesting a mission without a wrench thrown into the plans, in the form of Scott’s daughter Kate (Ella Purnell), a volunteer worker in a Vegas camp who wants to rescue a missing friend prior to the big explosion. Making matters worse, these aren’t your garden-variety zombies, and they’re more than happy to take advantage of our heroes’ dysfunction.
For the opening credits, the movie provides us a look at how Vegas transformed into a zombie utopia, to the tune of a cover of “Viva Las Vegas”. Much like Watchmen’s opening, it feels like its own short film, going from darkly comical to intense, then to suddenly heartbreaking (but still campy). The poor Liberace impersonator’s just playing the piano, he’s totally unprepared for these ghouls barging in and gobbling his assistant up. One could imagine how much larger the budget would have been had Zack chosen to focus the story on the city’s fall instead of the aftermath.
In contrast to how rigor mortis will affect a traditional zombie’s movement, Snyder phases out the slower, shambling corpses in favor of far more agile undead creatures, more than happy to chase down their victims before gobbling them up. Here they’re able to emote, make plans and organize their own empire. At points, they reminded me of something out of Lord Of The Rings rather than the kind of zombies one would find in The Walking Dead.
So this is an ultimately very grim and gorey zombie story, with some characters displaying early on how willing they are to betray one another (be it for money, sexual desire, or just for survival’s sake). Theo Rossi as a sleazy security guard is quite hateable, but this puts him from a moral standpoint further on the zombie chopping block, as it does Garrett Dillahunt as a merc who’s only got money on his mind (to all Raising Hope fans, you never thought you’d see Burt act so cold-hearted).
But the filmmakers do try to squeeze in some character development amidst all of the corpse-blasting. Not every emotional beat rings perfectly, but we do get some noble sacrifices mixed in (without spoiling anything, did you really think going in this was the kind of film where everyone survived in one piece?)
Also, the core relationship between Kate and Scott was strong enough to keep me attached to how the situation was affecting the cast. During Batista’s wrestling career I had always felt he was a much better actor in the ring on average, able to be both sympathetic and ruthless when the situation called for it, and his anguish over the loss of his family is pretty convincing.
Even with a two-hour-plus run time, Army Of The Dead can only cover so much. This is another film sporting a concept that could have also supported eight Netflix episodes or so, because the length is limited in terms of the amount of backstory it can add to its cast. It’s not an especially deep or profound action movie, if you’re just coming in to see the undead get wrecked then you’ll certainly get a kick out of this.
To be honest, I felt it came off like more of a “video game film” than Mortal Kombat did, if only because of how much certain scenes resembled the player-one traveling down a corridor in a first-person shooter. And unlike MK, even if it wasn’t anything Oscar-worthy, it was wittier, more tongue-in-cheek, and there was more drama for me to match onto, so I’ll recommend it on that basis (and also if you’re a Snyder completest). If you’ve had the chance to watch it, let us know your take on FAN’s social media as always!