Netflix original. Army of the Dead is the new zombie action film from Zack Snyder. When zombies take over Las Vegas, Dave Bautista is tasked with putting together a team to recover millions of dollars from a casino safe in the middle of the city.
Now, I haven’t always been the world’s biggest Zack Snyder fan. However, I do have some positive things to say about Army of the Dead. For a start it is basically Aliens with zombies and I really like Aliens and I enjoy zombie based mayhem, so that was enjoyable. The climax of the film is genuinely quite tense and I had fun watching the climax in particular. I also like Dave Bautista as an action hero, I think he works as that character.
However, the primary complaint of the film is that it is way too long. At 2 and a half hours, the film could easily have cut plenty out, including a tacked on ending bit that is wholly unnecessary (much like Snyder’s recent Justice League). The script is also riddled with cliches and at times is really clunky, which is a shame as the film’s premise is actually very intriguing and setting it in Las Vegas could have been really fun, but they don’t fully utilise the Vegas setting for fun set pieces.
Honestly, I enjoyed this more than some of Snyder’s films, but the crushing run time and the fact that it is really just a less good Aliens, means I wouldn’t want to rewatch it any time soon. I’ve seen worse, Snyder has done worse, but I’ve also seen similar movies that have done the same thing better and with a good premise, the film could have done better. 2.5 Stars.
Movie Night 