“Army of the Dead” Review

Starring Dave Bautista, “Army of the Dead” sees him and a group of mercenaries go into the zombie-infested Las Vegas to steal millions from abandoned casinos.

After seeing director Zack Snyder’s film “Justice League” being torn apart by DC Films and all of the controversy surrounding that film, I was incredibly happy to finally see Snyder’s vision this year with “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.” But what I was even more excited for was to see Snyder return to the horror subgenre of zombie action for which he earned a big name for himself with 2004’s “Dawn of the Dead.” Snyder’s latest directorial effort, “Army of the Dead,” is a fantastic thrill-ride from start to finish and, while it’s currently on Netflix as an original film, I do wish it was playing at a nearby theater so I could experience all of the zombie-killing revelry on the big screen.

When a zombie breakout occurs in the city of Las Vegas, the entire city is walled off by the U.S. government, refugees from the city are looking for a place to live and the government is about to nuke the city in order to kill the zombies. Upon realizing that a lot of money is in the casinos and it’s about to be charred, a wealthy businessman (Hiroyuki Sanada) recruits a group of mercenaries led by Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) to go inside the zombie-infested Las Vegas, get a lot of money and get the hell out before the nuke drops in less than two days.

While not all of Snyder’s films are masterpieces, with some exceptions like “300” and “Watchmen,” the man is incredibly talented at framing and executing exciting action which is what the film is all about. He also is pretty talented at world-building and one of the characters, a French smuggler named Lily (Nora Arnezeder), helps the characters navigate this world by showing them what they’re up against. 

The mercenaries are not only up against the slow-moving hordes of zombies that are expected in most of these films, but also highly intelligent “Alphas” who have created their own society in Las Vegas. I would write a joke about how difficult it is to imagine Las Vegas as a city filled with flesh-eating monsters but I’m pretty sure you have come up with one already.

Besides directing the film, Director Zack Snyder also serves as the film’s cinematographer and used lightweight cinema cameras for “Army of the Dead.”

One thing to expect from Snyder’s work are strong visuals and while some films can show too much and not properly explain the meaning for the imagery, like 2011’s “Suckerpunch,” “Army of the Dead’s” visuals are breathtaking. Watching these characters fight zombies in this crumbling city is visually stunning and always grabs your attention. 

The first four minutes are mesmerising as Snyder uses the opening credits to explain how this zombie outbreak happened and within the first four minutes the film has the proper environmental set-up, an introduction to the villains and where exactly the characters fit into this world.

While not the most complex, the characters of the film are a good deal of fun and have lots of comedy which works really well. The only character who appears to be given any drama behind them is Scott Ward because he has a broken relationship with his daughter Kate (Ella Purnell) which is tested when Kate joins Scott’s team. Bautista does a good job of layering his performance with drama, making him more than just the standard action hero and the relationship between him and Kate works very well.

Snyder not only directed, produced and co-wrote the film, but also serves as the director of photography. While he frames his action very well, he uses lenses with higher focal lengths which means that very specific parts of the frame are in focus, such as a character, while the rest of the frame is very blurred. This sometimes works as the blur can hide a creature or some unknown detail, but other times it’s just very confusing. 

With films like “Zombieland,” “Overlord,” “World War Z” and Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead,” the specific sub-genre of action/zombie films has quite a few excellent titles to choose from. If there’s any film that deserves to be called the best film in this field, it’s “Army of the Dead.”