Zack Snyder has been having somewhat of a resurgence this year. Following Zack Snyder’s Justice League, we get to see the director’s second foray into the zombie genre with Army of the Dead. It’s been in development since 2007, finally seeing the light of day on Netflix (and a limited theater run). It’s a competent action flick that, unfortunately, fails to be more than the sum of its parts.
After a patient zero zombie escapes from a military convoy outside of Las Vegas, a zombie outbreak spreads through the city. The government manages to contain it within Vegas by walking it off with container boxes. A while after the outbreak, the president has decided to nuke Vegas to kill off all remaining zombies. An enterprising casino owner, Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) approaches former soldier Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) to form a team to sneak into Vegas and retrieve $200 million from the vault of his casino before the nuke is dropped. Ward assembles a ragtag team, but a last minute development forces him to bring his estranged daughter Katie (Ella Purcell) on the mission. When inside Vegas, they quickly find out that there’s a second breed of zombies called alphas who are faster, intelligent and have formed a society of their own.
The best thing about Army of the Dead is that it feels like a good next step in Zack Snyder’s evolution as a filmmaker.
The film isn’t overtly flashy, grim or wrought with melodramatic excess. It still feels recognizable enough as a Snyder flick, but it feels more focused. The action scenes are engaging, but nothing too stylish or over-the-top.
The character-building moments are there for the main characters, but they feel mostly perfunctory and, sometimes, tacked on. There are simply too many characters to develop all of them right, though we do get some moments from characters such as Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer) and Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick).
The plot also feels contrived in some cases. A late plot twist puts into question the actions of a certain character earlier in the film. Another character decides to die on a rooftop instead of trying to jump onto a chopper that was lifting off. Then there’s an awkward transition into Ward discussing unexplored feelings with his friend, Maria (Ana de la Reguera) and then something shocking happens a few seconds later. Due to reshoots, a vital character in the last few minutes of the film ends up disappearing without any explanation. The epilogue, where one character escapes the desolate remains of the city and boards a flight to Mexico City with his new-found wealth, only to discover an unwelcome development, also feels questionable when you consider earlier developments in the film. Then there’s the absolutely bonkers inclusion of robot zombies.
Army of the Dead is still enjoyable. However, it fails to rise above its flaws and become the great zombie flick it could have been. There are going to be two prequels to the film on Netflix. Let’s hope those turn out better than this one.