There are times when I turn on a thing and realize it was a mistake. Sometimes it’s a terrible 80s horror film like Edge of the Axe (1988) or a TV series you don’t realize will leave you disappointed until it’s too late (ahem, Jupiter’s Legacy). This time, it’s Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead.
If I’m honest, I came into this with high hopes. Unlike most people over the age of 25, I actually quite enjoy Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead (2004) – even though I agree that the original is a better film. I thought the film handled its zombie universe well, built up meaningful personal stakes for its characters, and had sufficient tension to make for an occasionally terrifying adventure. It is upon that experience that I came into Army of the Dead with certain expectations for the kind of film we’d get. Alas, a heist-y Dawn of the Dead we did not get.
Army of the Dead opens with a car crash between a military convoy and a car of newlyweds outside Las Vegas. You can imagine what the newlyweds are up to on your own time. The convoy, it turns out, is carrying a monster which might be an alien or an experiment or just a regular super zombie; naturally, the super zombie infects several of the soldiers, and then we’re gifted a montage of stylistic zombie mayhem. The rest of the story follows Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), a former mercenary who is hired by Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) to infiltrate his casino and salvage the vault of cash before Las Vegas is nuked to control the infection. With Scott is a crew of eccentric mercenary misfits that includes Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera), Ludwig Dieter (Matthia Schweighöfer), Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro, who is CGed into the movie), Lily (Nora Arnezeder), and more. Scott’s daughter, Kate (Ella Purnell), also forces her way along to find her friend, who has gone into the quarantine zone and disappeared. Hijinks ensue.
As a film, Army of the Dead is a prime example of the Snyder approach to filmmaking. Significant portions of the film are dedicated to flashy imagery operating as a kind of concept art. Snyder has been accused of operating in a style-over-substance vein numerous times, and he does not escape that criticism here. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the brief shot in the zombie infection montage in which we watch paratroopers descend into the zombie-infested Vegas streets, where they are absurdly outnumbered and serve as little more than appetizers to the horde. While the irony is interesting, the entire sequence makes little sense. Why would the U.S. military drop paratroopers into obviously infested streets? If Vegas is the center of the infection, why wouldn’t you quarantine the area first and use crowd dispersal tactics to reduce the zombie numbers? The scene feels less anchored to the actual world and story than it does to Snyder’s style throughout the film. Ultimately, if you think even for a minute about what you’re watching, the entire thing falls apart. And, no, you can’t survive a nuke that way. No, sir.
That style-over-substance nature of the film permeates nearly every facet of the story. Scott’s conflict with his daughter, for example, is largely inserted to add tension to what is already a tense mission and to derail the story with nonsensical timelines. But we don’t understand why the tension exists, and when we do finally get an answer, it’s a throwaway line that does nothing to ground us in the emotional journey of the family – and even less to convince us of the film’s painfully obvious ending. The subplots are also compounded on top of each other, and yet none of them feel particularly earned or “lived in.” Scott’s relationship isn’t a vehicle for a meaningful exploration of family; it is merely a device to complicate the heist plot. Did it need to be here? Not really. Couple this with other side plots, such as Tanaka’s goon having an ulterior motive, or the far more interesting I Am Legend turn as we realize early on that the zombies are not what we think they are, and you end up with a movie that seems hell bent on having personal stakes but doesn’t want to spend the time to make them land. These extra levels are stylistic flourishes of other, more complete stories, inserted to imitate effective narratives. And they’re coupled with lackluster horror tropes, such as characters doing things that nobody in their right mind would do. I might have yelled at the TV on a number of occasions…
Much of this, of course, could be resolved by simply thinking about the shot sequences or plot contrivances before putting them on the screen. What does a scene add? Does it make sense in context? Is this emotional moment earned? These are all questions that this film desperately needs to interrogate but never does. The film would also have benefited from someone on set having a watch, as we’re told numerous times that the nuke will drop before the runtime of the film has concluded. The sense of space or time is almost absent here, so much so that we might as well live in an alternate reality in which those concepts mean absolutely nothing. The result is a movie that would be disappointing if it weren’t another Zack Snyder hand flail.
All of that said, the movie is not without its goods. While Notaro is criminally underused here, there are hints at a stellar performance which, yes, is style-forward but feels anchored to a real character – a badass helicopter pilot with a snarky mouth (give me more). Reducing Notaro to a “yes” character, though, leaves much to be desired. I could say similar things about Schweighöfer’s Dieter, who brings a frenetic energy to the cast that is much needed.
Additionally, Snyder is a master of the visual craft. His shot compositions, while often nonsensical, are pleasing to look at. If Snyder could focus his stories so the images are more than stylistic flourishes, I could see him producing memorable works in almost any genre. There is one scene, for example, in which the cast must weave their way through a room full of sleeping zombies without waking them; it’s as tense as any horror scene you can imagine, and I wish more of the movie focused on the horrific complexities of performing a heist in a zombie-infested city – i.e., where the heart lives. Likewise, Snyder’s vision of apocalyptic Las Vegas is stunning and puts similar genre versions – such as Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) – to bed. I also found his treatment of the zombies – as an ant-like hierarchy – quite compelling if not underexplored, and his treatment of gore throughout made for a suitably splashy film. In a lot of ways, this movie feels like an action-packed video game. Perhaps that’s where Snyder should have taken it, as I think it would have worked better in that medium than as a film.
All-in-all, I came away from this film one part disappointed and one part kicking myself for expecting anything else. The criticisms of Snyder as a director remain accurate. He is a style-first, story-second director, and while that can make for visually-pleasing films, it doesn’t make for films worth remembering. There are better zombie movies out there, and I’ll return those to my screens sooner than I’d give Army of the Dead another shot. Find a copy of the original Dawn of the Dead (1978). You won’t be disappointed.
