Movie Breakdown: Army Of The Dead
Pre-Screening Stance:
Army Of The Dead looks like a pretty good time. On another note, the messy situation with Zack Snyder’s Justice League was an entirely weird, fairly exhausting thing, and while I did end up liking the movie, I’m happy (and a little relieved) that he’s already got something new coming out. Let’s move on!
Post-Screening Ramble:
Army Of The Dead definitely has too much fat on it, but I did enjoy the film. It begins with a super zombie (he’s fast and smart) ravaging Las Vegas, which – after a lengthy Watchmen-like intro of locals fighting to survive the infestation – leads to it getting walled off and scheduled for destruction via nuclear bomb. Casino boss Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) then enters the picture and offers soldier-turned-burger-flipper Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) a cool $50 million to retrieve a large amount of cash from his vault before the city gets wiped off the map. Ward accepts, he assembles a team, and then they set off to do some heisting. This is all actually right at the start of the film, so the setup is pretty lean and quick. Once everyone is ready to enter Vegas though, things just expand too far – Ward’s daughter forces her way into the expedition, a guide is put on the team, Tanaka sends in his head of security, and a random guard is pulled into the fray. These folks are in addition to Ward and the original six people on his team, plus an entire city of zombies who have their own leader and hierarchy. It’s a lot to sort through and solid chunks of it don’t really register as necessary. Still, as is the case with a lot of Zack Snyder’s movies, his indulgent, kitchen sink approach makes Army Of The Dead pop just as much as it causes it to fizzle. This is a stylish, fun film, one with a lot of cool action scenes, swagger and a good sense of humor. It even has a few gnarly moments to give it some emotional weight. In the end, I think its two and a half hour runtime and plethora of characters, details and everything else may be too much of a hurdle for some, but those of you who are able to squiggle past all of that will be solidly entertained.
Army Of The Dead will be viewable on Netflix this Friday, May 21.
One Last Thought:
Tig Notaro’s turn as Marianne Peters, an overly chatty, likely-insane helicopter pilot, reminded me a lot of Sharlto Copley’s thoroughly bonkers Murdock from Joe Carnahan’s A-Team movie.
