ARMY OF THE DEAD

From the over the top opening credit scene, you'll know the type of zombie movie you're getting into for the next 2 hours 30 minutes. For me, it's an unserious one (not in a bad way) but one with a solid production. At this point in 2021, it's difficult to make a movie in the horror genre let alone a zombie movie that people haven't seen all of what is going to happen. The last 20 years of Hollywood movies on zombies is enough to get anyone a worthy fill on this genre; so an impressive new entry is tough to make at this point. 

'Army of the Dead' felt like it was partially inspired by videos games like 'Dead Rising' and 'Resident Evil'. For some reason, it also felt like a long-time passion of Zack Snyder wanting to make a zombie movie apart from his work in 2004's 'Dawn of the dead'. With all of that said. Let's get into what this movie is about.

Following a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries takes on a daring heist mission to recover $200 million from a vault in a casino in the quarantine zone before the whole city is nuked by the U.S. government; a simple and straightforward plot.

This is another one of those movies that is aware of how ridiculous its plot is and it didn't mind making jokes about how obvious this fact is. When you've got a plan like the one in this movie, you definitely know people on that team are barely going to make it out alive. So throw out all forms of logic while going into this movie because you're not going to need it and you're just here for the fun of it. 

Also, I'll say 'Army of the Dead' is a different experience from the usual zombie movies especially from the 'Dawn of the dead' Zack Synder directed in 2004. 'Army of the Dead' carries a less serious tone. You can compare it to 2009's 'Zombieland', that's the best movie I can think of in terms of comparison.

The movie stars Dave Bautista as the Scott Ward, the leader of the mercenaries. I wouldn't want to say this movies suffers from plot holes but rather poor scripting or maybe it's just because of its unserious nature, it can get a pass on how dumb some of the scripting is. Stay on this with me, if anyone was going on a suicidal heist mission, the last thing they will want to do is bring their daughter along no matter the kind of resentment she has against them(said daughter has no combat training). The last set of people you want to bring along are people you have emotional attachments to. So basically, Scott made all the wrong possible mistakes he could have made. He also brings along a former love interest who is a fellow mercenary; perfect recipe for disaster. Like an hour into the movie, we saw the first death in the crew due to the actions of a traitor within the group, but hold on, before the crew member died their last word was to scream out for their crew to leave without them and not shout to them that the traitor is a danger to them(absolutely ridiculous). I can go on and on about how poorly scripted this movie is but it's just going to spoil all the fun but like I said, throw out all realistic approach you might have if you're going to watch this movie; it's not worth stressing over the lack of realism or common sense.

'Army of the Dead' is a Snyder movie so in the department of cinematography and CGI, the movie excels without a doubt; just as expected. We know that already and whatever praise this movie is getting in that department, It's not a surprise at this point.

Someone asked me if 'Army of the Dead' is the worst Synder's movie so far. Honestly, I can't tell but when you look back on some of his good his works, 'Army of the Dead' is definitely not ontop of the list and possibly even not even mid tier on the list. In my opinion 'Dawn of the Dead' is a better movie than this. So, should you watch this movie? Well, I'll say you should just watch for the fun of it. Nothing spectacular to see here.

P.S.: The zombies or infected in this movie are too theatrical for me to take them serious.