No spoilers yet, but I'll warn you ahead of time. I like Snyder films, for the most part. He often prioritizes visuals and atmosphere over writing, and I expect that, but his visuals are so stunning that I can often forget about his weaknesses, which is true up to a point in this film.
You'll be wowed by the stylistic way this film brings zombie vegas to life, especially in the memorable opening credits. You'll have moments of "dun dun dun" as bokeh infused light and billowing fabric heralds the slow motion entrance of a villain or hero. You'll feel a certain sense of awe at the post-apocalyptic landscape of Vegas.
But, unless you're new to the zombie genre, or the heist genre, or Zack Snyder, or big budget action movies, you're probably going to get the nagging sense that you've seen and heard all of this before, and in better films. But that isn't the cardinal sin in Army of the Dead. Recycling material can work sometimes. The big issue here is story. I can't remember when I last watched a movie with a budget this big and a premise that seemed this fun which turned out to feel so hollow. Spoilers to follow.
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As zombie Las Vegas is set to be nuked, this ragtag team of mercs are hired by a rich casino owner to steal 100M from his zombie sieged casino. It seems simple enough as a heist premise, and a fun idea to boot. But as the story progresses, the characters feel derivative, spew cliches and make staggeringly stupid decisions-to the point of even prophetically warning themselves of their own doom.
But the most hollow aspect of this bloated gore fest action heist is that the premise-the stealing of the money-is pointless. The money isn't even the point of the heist in the end, but rather a blood sample of a "smart" zombie. A feat which could have been achieved within the first five minutes of them entering Las Vegas, while the team was fully assembled. If the stealing of the queen's head was the important thing, it would have made more sense for Tanaka to hire Ward and the team to do this, rather than wasting their time and talents on a job he didn't care about merely as a smokescreen to have his incompetent traitor Martin do the work mostly alone. This is a stupid premise, and once we realize this is the case, it makes much of the plot seem unnecessary.
To add insult to injury, we are inundated with interesting information about potential aliens, diverging timelines, intelligent undead, robot zombies and Area 51, only to have all of that brushed off and ignored. Instead we get long dialogue scenes and useless info about safecracking for a slow last half of the movie of which the lynchpin is supposed to be speed.
Who is the bad guy? Zeus? Tanaka? The government? Who knows. Who cares. Does the money matter? Apparently not. The setup looks as though Ward may become the next start zombie, but then Kate kills him. The confusing and frustrating conclusion is that Vanderohe magically escapes the vault, survives the nuke, gets the money and finds out long after the fact that he's infected, which makes no sense. Why did he take so long to turn? Why did Zeus need the queen's head? Why were only some zombies intelligent? Who is Tanaka?
Snyder doesn't care. The writing is lazy and predictable, the pacing is sometimes frustrating and the end result feels devoid of the fun which the opening credits promised. It felt like a potentially awesome Zombieland meets Oceans Eleven meets I Am Legend, so why would I rather see any one of those than this film again?
It's ok to watch. A little stiff and bland. Bautista does a decent job, Pernell is straight up annoying and Guzman, who is the most fun, dies. I'd personally have rather seen an action comedy of Guzman and Chambers fighting zombies for YouTube fame, or Bautista launching a food truck business, than this convoluted mess of a plot with a stale script and a VFXed Notaro.
Oh well. Snyder wins some and loses some. This was a loss.
You'll be wowed by the stylistic way this film brings zombie vegas to life, especially in the memorable opening credits. You'll have moments of "dun dun dun" as bokeh infused light and billowing fabric heralds the slow motion entrance of a villain or hero. You'll feel a certain sense of awe at the post-apocalyptic landscape of Vegas.
But, unless you're new to the zombie genre, or the heist genre, or Zack Snyder, or big budget action movies, you're probably going to get the nagging sense that you've seen and heard all of this before, and in better films. But that isn't the cardinal sin in Army of the Dead. Recycling material can work sometimes. The big issue here is story. I can't remember when I last watched a movie with a budget this big and a premise that seemed this fun which turned out to feel so hollow. Spoilers to follow.
-----
As zombie Las Vegas is set to be nuked, this ragtag team of mercs are hired by a rich casino owner to steal 100M from his zombie sieged casino. It seems simple enough as a heist premise, and a fun idea to boot. But as the story progresses, the characters feel derivative, spew cliches and make staggeringly stupid decisions-to the point of even prophetically warning themselves of their own doom.
But the most hollow aspect of this bloated gore fest action heist is that the premise-the stealing of the money-is pointless. The money isn't even the point of the heist in the end, but rather a blood sample of a "smart" zombie. A feat which could have been achieved within the first five minutes of them entering Las Vegas, while the team was fully assembled. If the stealing of the queen's head was the important thing, it would have made more sense for Tanaka to hire Ward and the team to do this, rather than wasting their time and talents on a job he didn't care about merely as a smokescreen to have his incompetent traitor Martin do the work mostly alone. This is a stupid premise, and once we realize this is the case, it makes much of the plot seem unnecessary.
To add insult to injury, we are inundated with interesting information about potential aliens, diverging timelines, intelligent undead, robot zombies and Area 51, only to have all of that brushed off and ignored. Instead we get long dialogue scenes and useless info about safecracking for a slow last half of the movie of which the lynchpin is supposed to be speed.
Who is the bad guy? Zeus? Tanaka? The government? Who knows. Who cares. Does the money matter? Apparently not. The setup looks as though Ward may become the next start zombie, but then Kate kills him. The confusing and frustrating conclusion is that Vanderohe magically escapes the vault, survives the nuke, gets the money and finds out long after the fact that he's infected, which makes no sense. Why did he take so long to turn? Why did Zeus need the queen's head? Why were only some zombies intelligent? Who is Tanaka?
Snyder doesn't care. The writing is lazy and predictable, the pacing is sometimes frustrating and the end result feels devoid of the fun which the opening credits promised. It felt like a potentially awesome Zombieland meets Oceans Eleven meets I Am Legend, so why would I rather see any one of those than this film again?
It's ok to watch. A little stiff and bland. Bautista does a decent job, Pernell is straight up annoying and Guzman, who is the most fun, dies. I'd personally have rather seen an action comedy of Guzman and Chambers fighting zombies for YouTube fame, or Bautista launching a food truck business, than this convoluted mess of a plot with a stale script and a VFXed Notaro.
Oh well. Snyder wins some and loses some. This was a loss.