It’s October! I, like many others, enjoy getting in the Halloween spirit by watching some films that coincide with the horror aesthetic of the holiday. This year I started off my fright film fest with a relatively new film, Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead. This film was released on Netflix exclusively in 2021 and is written and directed by Snyder.

I’ve always enjoyed Zack Snyder’s work despite much of the valid criticism that has surrounded many of his projects. Though he never quite makes a perfect film, he certainly knows how to deliver an entertaining and memorable cinematic experience. I’m happy to say he continues this trend with Army of the Dead, which blends elements of heist films together with a classic zombie survival narrative structure.

The story of Army of the Dead begins a few months after a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas. The city is now a quarantine zone set for destruction by the United States government in the hope to eradicate the infection. However, before this can happen a wealthy businessman employs a team of mercenaries to steal the contents of a casino safe.

What follows is certainly your typical zombie-killing spree, but the engaging setting and premise certainly grabbed my attention. You can tell Snyder had fun making this film. He’s at his best developing fun action set pieces and constructing gore-filled cinematography.

I loved the costumes and makeup of the zombies in this film. I also appreciated the world-building Snyder tries to develop around his monstrous foes, though I wished it could have played a more central role in the story. The idea of a zombie kingdom within America is quite intriguing, and the brief glimpses into the undead society are some of the best scenes for me.

The acting is also solid throughout. Dave Bautista is a great lead for this story, and Snyder employs his physicality quite well in action scenes. The supporting cast is also likable and brimming with charisma, which is hugely important for a heist movie.

Unfortunately,  there is a decent chunk of screen time devoted to a cliché father-daughter relationship that feels as if it was crammed into the story to simply elicit a cheap emotional response from the audience. It’s clear Snyder himself doesn’t care much for the relationship, and I wish he had simply focused more on the individual psyches of our mercenary team. The main three members of the team certainly have a decent amount of lingering trauma, as they each took part in the initial military response to contain the zombie infection. Instead, the film takes the easy route and sticks firmly within established character tropes common to the genres it pulls from. Thus, much of the interpersonal conflict here is dull and forgettable.

The film also certainly stretches your attention to the limit. The runtime is surprisingly long and could have certainly used some trimming. There are a few scenes that fulfill similar roles within the story or focus on subplots that still haven’t been fully fleshed out and thus create needless confusion. Had Snyder spent a little more time editing, the end product could have been much more cohesive.

I feel Snyder was trying to do a little too much with this project. What should have simply been a dumb, fun action-horror film becomes lost in a sea of mediocre characters and relationships that culminates in a finale that falls flat on its face. I struggle to pinpoint a major theme of this work and even with the two-hour-plus runtime, the story still feels unfished with many questions still unanswered.

I wanted to love Army of the Dead, but I don’t see myself returning to this film ever again. It’s entertaining, but still far from being one of the best zombie films I’ve seen. I’d recommend watching Train to Busan instead. It plays with the tropes of the genre in a more unique and satisfying tale.

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Army of the Dead

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• Fun Action
• Good Setting
• Zombies

Cons

• Tropes and Clichés Abound
• Forced Father-Daughter Relationship