‘Within these walls, the rules are clear...’
There are few more polarising directors in Hollywood than Zack Snyder. After bursting onto the scene with his undeniably excellent Dawn of the Dead remake, Snyder furnished his reputation with the well received Watchmen and the visually impressive 300. Since then however, his role as a key figure within the much maligned DC Extended Universe (DCEU) has somewhat tarnished his reputation. Army of the Dead marks Snyder’s first non-DCEU outing since the poorly received Sucker Punch in 2011… it should also probably be his last.
This is traditionally the plot paragraph, but I just can’t. I’m sorry. Basically, there is a heist (for reasons that I never fully understood) and there is a zombie apocalypse. The zombies have now become self aware and are able to feel emotions more than just braindead hunger (again, I’m not sure how or why this has happened). A ragtag bunch of indistinguishable stock action movie characters, led by Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) must travel to Vegas to steal some money. On the way, they encounter a zombie tiger, some loud explosions and some flashing lights. And they encounter them over a two…and… a…half… hour… running… time. Who allowed this to happen?!
I’ll try and begin with a positive. Snyder is a director who made his name by combining visual flair with a penchant for the melodramatic, and in Army of the Dead’s best scenes, he almost recaptures some of that magic. Most tellingly in the opening title sequence. These moments are few and far between, however. Mostly, Snyder’s latest bowel movement is like if you stitched together all the most boring parts of every heist movie and all the most boring parts of every zombie movie into a hideous whole and then added an eye-rollingly earnest soundtrack and threw in a selection of utterly forgettable actors. It really is a bad movie. It’s almost impressive that Snyder is able to take this batshit premise and create something that is so, so dull.
By attempting to combine two disparate genres, Snyder has succeeded only in making a bad heist movie and a bad zombie movie. It is an outrage that I spent two and a half hours watching this ‘film’ when I could have spent that time watching cartoons instead. I didn’t pay for it but I still feel as though I am owed some kind of financial recompense for having sat through such a terrible piece of filmmaking.
Utterly woeful.