Army of the Dead: Dead on Arrival

The short version: Meh, it's not good.

It feels strange writing this piece considering my last post was full of such high praise for a film by the same director, but here we are.

Over the past weekend, my wife and I watched Army of the Dead, the latest film by Zack Snyder. The basic premise is: Zombies have taken over Las Vegas, which has been quarantined by the Government while they think of a solution (the solution being to nuke the city). A casino owner hires a small band of mercenaries, lead by Dave Bautista, to sneak into the city and empty the safe under his casino before the bomb goes off. Action ensues, obviously.

So there we go, a pretty simple premise that sounds like an exciting setup for an over-the-top, dark-comedy action movie, right? Well, apparently not, because that's not what we got. Before I get into the usual breakdown, here's a few* questions the movie left me with once I finished it (as always, full spoiler warning is in effect but...I mean I'm probably doing you a favor with this one).

* A few in this case being a lot.

- Why does this movie take place in Las Vegas? And I don't mean why in the story, I mean what is the point? There is NOTHING that happens in this movie, outside of the opening credit sequence, that even makes me think that this is in Las Vegas. This seems like a setting that was meant to have a singular, unique aesthetic purpose, but it's almost never utilized. There's one scene in a casino, and one zombie tiger, everything else is standard zombies and stock hallways.

- Why do we have a scene explaining that the majority of the hordes of zombies in Vegas are all fried by the sun, and get up in the rain, if we're NEVER GOING TO HAVE A SCENE WHERE THEY GET UP IN THE RAIN!? Chekhov's gun anyone?

- Actually, here's a list of things off the top of my head that are specifically brought up by characters and then never matter:

1. One character has a large saw that he claims is his, going so far as to prevent another character from carrying it. He then never uses it. In fact, a completely different character is the only person we see use it.

2. The characters discuss killing the man who is CLEARLY going to betray them. Nothing happens and then he betrays them, but it doesn't matter because they immediately escape his trap and he dies. Nothing matters.

3. The characters discuss why the Alpha Zombie takes people prisoner. It seems like maybe we're going to learn why. We do not. So much potential is wasted in this movie.

- Why do we have a post-credits scene of one of the last surviving characters on a plane to Mexico, revealing he was bitten, after we have a scene where he is EXPLICITLY, in slow motion, saved from being bitten and then locked in a bomb-proof, air-tight safe, alone, for the rest of the movie before escaping out into the world?

- Why do we have two separate scenes in this movie where, when characters are attacked by the "smart zombie" that wears a metal faceplate, they fire ALL OF THEIR BULLETS directly into his faceplate? It's frustrating enough to have stupidity drive your plot in one scene, having it happen twice is just lazy.

- If the plan is really a cover for the double agent guy to just capture an alpha zombie head, why not just hire a team to do that? Why all the nonsense with a safe? Imagine how successful the team would have been if, instead of hiring safe crackers and helicopter pilots, they had just hired a few people with guns, killed the Queen Zombie (who they meet two minutes after entering the city), and turned around to leave?

- Who let Zack Snyder be his own DP? He's a great director, but do not let this man hold a camera please. The depth of field in this movie is so whack, the whole thing looks really cheap.

- Why are so many things in this film ripped off of Aliens? Why? Seriously, there's too many for it to be a coincidence.

- Zack, why were some of the zombies robots? Please explain this. This movie wasn't interesting enough to explore prequels that answer this question, and I'm less curious than just confused.

- Why do we have a full side-plot (which becomes the main plot) of Dave Bautista's daughter trying to save her friend, only to have her friend die off-screen at the end? I don't care that you want to kill off the character for the shock, but to not even make us care when she drove half the plot?

- Not so much a question, but the inciting incident in this movie is: A military convoy (called the 4 horseman, because apparently giving something a cool name is enough to justify only sending four vehicles to transport a world-ending threat) carrying the alpha zombie is thrown into chaos after they hit a random car on the highway because the military drivers aren't paying attention and the guy in the random car is getting road-head. I didn't make that up. Is this a comedy? Is this scene supposed to be serious? I cannot tell you, the movie sure doesn't seem to know. This scene perfectly encapsulates this movies incredibly confused tone. Yeesh.

Yeah, we're not off to a great start, and I have bad news: The breakdown isn't going to be any better.

The Tone: I'm concerned that this is either what Zack Snyder considers a dark comedy, or a serious, dramatic action film, because Army of the Dead works as neither. This would have worked great as an over-the-top, ZombieLand style action-comedy, and it ALMOST seems like it might go in that direction when they hire the guy who makes zombie killing Youtube videos, but nope. I'm not even sure how to describe the tone of this film, it's just so...flat? There's no highs or lows, everything just kinda happens, and you're along for the ride. This movie could have been a 90 minute thrill ride, but instead it's more like being strapped in for a two-and-a-half hour drive in medium traffic while a couple of assholes occasionally try and merge from the shoulder.

The Action: I was painfully bored for 90% of the runtime, but no more so than during the action scenes. I think it says a lot about a zombie movie that I would rather not watch people try and fight the zombies. There was no tension, characters were all zombie killing experts, every shot fired hits a zombie in the head, right up until it was time for them to leave the movie, and then they get swarmed. There's no creativity or visual flair in any of the scenes outside of the opening, they never utilize the unique environment of Las Vegas and none of the characters skillsets ever come into play in a meaningful way.

I do want to mention the most memorable action scene, though. A character (we'll call her Vasquez because she has the headband from Aliens and god save me if I can remember a single name from this movie) somehow gets separated from the main group (when she was literally 2 feet behind them beforehand), and is then subsequently locked in with the zombies by the shady government guy, only to fight her way back to the group who then...watch her die. They just watch. Nobody even attempts to help even though there's only like 5 zombies and she's not even a few yards away from them. It was absolutely hilarious.

The Characters: The characters are all stock. I don't have anything else to say about them, nobody has any unique character traits. We have the tough woman, the single dad with the strained daughter relationship, the nervous geek, the shady government guy, the millennials who do internet stuff, the wisecracking one who cares deep down, and...the black guy (I don't remember a single characters name). No one here goes through any meaningful character arc, everyone is already great at everything they need to do (until they aren't), and there's never any tension. No joke, there's a moment where the action stops so two characters who've barely spoken the whole movie can have a heart to heart about their feelings for each-other, right before one of them dies in an incredibly goofy way. This is not how you elicit an emotional response.

The Premise: As I mentioned above, there's so much wasted potential in this movie. This could have been such an interesting plot with all of the different ideas at play, from the near-indestructible Alpha Zombie who wants to create his own Zombie army/society/kingdom(?), to the zombie apocalypse in a place as glitzy and over-the-top as Las Vegas, to the high-stakes heist with a crew of plucky mercenaries (in theory, maybe with better writing) working against the clock. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't seem to want to flesh out a single one of these ideas, it just lazily throws all of them into the same world as surface detail.

The Snyder Stuff: So, I should preface this part: I like Zack Snyder. I enjoy most of his films, and I think he's a serious talent, but he sometimes has a tendency to...overindulge himself, and this movie has his quirks on display in spades. For starters, this film is paced so poorly. We spend an hour on nothing before the characters even get into Las Vegas to start the actual plot. It would be one thing if the hour beforehand was spent on making us like all of these characters and teasing any arcs that might happen, or showing off how they'll help the team, but that's not the case (maybe because everyone dies at the end? But then why spend so much time with them?). This easily could have been a 90 minute movie, I honestly couldn't even tell you what we spend the extra hour of time on. He needs to work on trimming the fat from his movies (yes, even the good ones are overlong). Even single shots just go on for far too long, a staple of Snyder's films that usually doesn't bother me, but here the payoff is just more nonsense. There are at least three out of focus shots in this movie that never come into focus, and I can't for the life of me figure out what feeling this is supposed to evoke in me outside of frustration.

Look at this shot. What is this?

I think that's about all I have to say regarding Army of the Dead. This film was annoying enough to make me want to write a review, but not inspiring enough for me to write anything remotely passionate about it, for better or worse. When this movie was first announced I got it confused with Army of Darkness and I recommend going to watch that again instead.

3/10 the opening credits have more fun action and emotion than the entire movie.