Netflix – Army of the Dead

by Hans A. Carpenter
Director: Zach Snyder
Release Date: May 14
Starring: Dave Bautista, Ella, Purnell, and Omari Hardwick
Mister Marquee Says:
Dumb Fun
Number: 4/5
Scott (Dave Bautista) is contracted by a billionaire casino owner to recover $200 million from a Las Vegas vault after the city is overrun with zombies and is on the verge of being obliterated by a nuclear strike. Scott and his team must fight their way through zombies, recover the money, and helicopter out before the bomb drops.
Army of the Dead is not a sequel to Snyder’s first famous work, a remake of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead in 2004. This isn’t a horror movie at all, it’s a silly action movie and makes no bones about that fact.
On one hand, yeah Army of the Dead isn’t a high intellect flick by any means. That said, it’s not quite as shambling and mindless as the rank-and-file zombie, but more semi-intelligent like the “alpha” zombies. For every plot contrivance or bit of awful dialogue, there’s a zombie riding a horse or a zombie tiger to add just enough silly cool to balance out the bad.
Army of the Dead is a big budget, two-hour “B” movie with all the flaws and virtues that brings. Again, there is a zombie tiger. There are times that Snyder flirts with taking this film too seriously, but thankfully stays tonally consistent. There’s a certain honesty in a movie that knows what it is.
This may be an overly long movie at two-and-a-half hours, the human characters and their conflicts are paint by numbers, but Army of the Dead is at least fun at heart and that alone makes it an entertaining view.