Army of the Dead

I liked ARMY OF THE DEAD

I did. Really. It’s not gonna sound like it, but yeah, I enjoyed it. It’s not great, but it was a good time, and it’s the type of zombie films that I’d like to see more of, the ones set during the Zombie Apocalypse, not necessarily just the beginning. With shades of Bruckheimer/Simpson and even Carpenter too, to me, this is the type of film that Zack Snyder should be doing instead making shitty superhero films. So, while not as good as his own re-imagining of DAWN OF THE DEAD, or the Korean TRAIN TO BUSAN/PENISULA series… it’s good enough.

Faint praise, I know, but that’s the best you’re gonna get from me on this one.

So… After a zombie outbreak consumes Las Vegas, forcing the world to wall off a major city now teeming with the ravenous Dead, a group of mercenaries are hired to break the quarantine, and pull off an impossible heist.

I love the idea, but I have tons of nerd issues with this film.

For one, I’m generally not an “intelligent” zombie fan. I like when they’re mindless monsters who act more as mobile obstacles than when they’re direct enemies with agency, so there’s that. Plus, I hate when actors playing a “savage” character do the whole hunched “scary animal” head tilt thing, it annoys me, and there’s a lot of that happening here. Also, theme zombies bore me… baseball zombies, nurse zombies, clown zombies, yawn. In Vegas it might make a little more sense in some cases, but still, not interested. Even worse, they are also parkour zombies in this film. Parkour is the metal-studded dragon-painted dad-jeans of sports. Worst of all, the plan is flat out stupid. Expecting to fly 200 million dollars, plus possibly 8 to 10 adult humans, off the top of a structurally unsound building, in an easily 40 year old Huey that has been sitting out in the Las Vegas sun and sandy desert winds for how many years? Weight issues aside, the idea that you could just walk up, put some gas in, turn a wrench or two, and be ready to fly in a couple of hours is too much. It’s ludicrous. I’m more willing to believe that zombies are a real possibility before I’m willing to believe that god damn nonsense. Then there’s a little question, a problem like a needle in my eye… if the guy hiring the mercenaries is the guy who owns the vault they’re raiding… why didn’t he just give them the combo? Why do they need a safecracker?

There are basic movie issues too.

Right off the bat, for a guy who is known for his dedication to his visual style, some might even say he’s too dedicated, this is a very beige and uninteresting-looking film. Everything is sun-bleached, sure, I get it, but still… it’s just ugly and boring looking. There’s also too many characters, most of whom have no real reason to be there. You want some gruesome deaths sure, a few noble sacrifices, I get it, but any time your answer to a script problem is “because it’s cool” your script has issues, and in this case especially, this is indicative of the script’s general refusal to make any choices at all, let alone smart ones.

The film also highlights Snyder’s usual problems.

While I personally didn’t mind the length—I luxuriate in zombie apocalypse goodness, y’see—it definitely felt a little long, and that bloat was pretty much all found in the drawn-out moments, the overly-explanatory dialogue, and the try-hard jokes that don’t land, not to mention the ridiculous amounts of slo-mo, and worst of all, the numerous and shockingly pointless tangents into random allusions to time loops, to robot zombies, blah,blah, blah, all of which go nowhere and mean nothing... Snyder really does have a fantastic eye, but in my opinion, more than any other big blockbuster filmmaker working today, he would benefit not just from a strong Producer to act as a creative sounding board, but from a good editor that he trusts enough to listen to when they say no.

The other problem running under the surface of this whole film is that Snyder is basically a tone deaf wealthy white dude. I truly believe that he votes blue. In fact, it makes perfect sense, as his flippancy toward “politics” is obviously rooted in a cliched “I would’ve voted for Obama a third time” white liberal privilege thing. He seems like someone who honestly cares about issues, I think, at least from what I can tell from interviews, but he also lives a life where he can afford to not have to examine those issues too closely, and as a result, he is incapable of understanding that a Sean Spicer cameo is not a groan-funny joke, but a toxic endorsement, whether he intends that message or not. The ramifications of blithely feeding those wrong messages to the worst parts of his shitty and stupid fan base will never adversely effect him. In fact, their rabid zealotry benefits him. That toxicity, even if it’s (possibly) encouraged through ignorance, however it might be rooted in well-meaning intent, shines through here, especially in a film that is the cinematic equivalent of nu-metal.

But…

All that having been said, despite being kinda dumb, weirdly overly-complex, way too long, and plagued by multiple bad narrative decisions, I still kinda liked this film. I will admit that I obviously only liked this movie because I happen to really like the genre in general, so fair warning, while I can honestly say that I enjoyed the movie, I can not recommend this film to anyone, except to people like me.