Zack Snyder burst onto the scene with a successful remake of George Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead in 2004, which revitalized the zombie genre in the mid-to-late 2000s, along with the likes of Shaun Of The Dead and 28 Days Later. Snyder has gone a long way as a filmmaker since then, and he’s arguably crossing into a new period in his career, which began with his highly anticipated cut of Justice League releasing on HBO Max a couple months back. His new film, Army Of The Dead, brings him back to the zombie genre, while also serving as his first release with Netflix, and it’s clear that this is the kind of film he could have only made at this point in his career.
The film opens with the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, except it turns out to not be much of an apocalypse since the zombies have been contained within Las Vegas, walled off from the rest of the world. We follow Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), a former mercenary who now works at a burger joint. He’s approached by Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada), a billionaire who make Scott an offer he can’t refuse – get a group together who can get into Las Vegas, empty out the vault from his casino, and get out before the city is nuked.
He does manage to get a solid crew together. There’s the safecracker, Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), the helicopter pilot, Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro), and a collection of muscles to assist in fighting through the zombie horde including Scott’s good friend, Maria (Ana de la Reguera), Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), Lilly (Nora Arnezeder), Mikey (Raúl Castillo), Chambers (Samantha Win), and Burt (Theo Rossi), along with Tanaka’s shady associate, Martin (Garret Dillahunt). Unfortunately for Scott, his estranged daughter, Kate (Ella Purnell), has forced her way into the team in order to find a friend who might be stuck in Vegas.
There’s a lot to take in with this film, and quite literally so, since it’s probably one of, if not the, longest zombie movies out there, with a runtime nearing two-and-a-half hours. While it might initially seem like a back to basics routine, it is filled to the brim with a lot of Snyder’s usual fascinations and fixations from the machinations of power structures and the corruption of the human body to the various nods to mythology and the works of Richard Wagner. It offers a lot to unpack, especially as an exploration of how capitalism exploits those want a taste of the freedom that money can offer. Tanaka is hardly in need, and in fact, the hundreds of millions in the casino were already covered by insurance, he just wants more, and he knows that folks like Scott will work for a small piece of that pie. Some members of the crew are even promised ridiculously small sums for such a deadly mission, but anything is more than nothing.
The film also packs a lot of heart. Specifically through the relationship between Scott and Kate. Scott had to kill his wife because she was infected, and the act was so traumatizing to that he became emotionally closed off, leading to some resentment from Kate, who really needed someone to help process all this with. One can’t help but imagine how much of this is informed by Snyder’s relationship with Autumn, who he lost in 2017. Admittedly, the way Snyder and his co-writers, Shay Hatten and Joby Harold, incorporated this aspect could have been done more gracefully. A young woman who has no weapons experience forcing her dad to take her into his heist mission so she can help someone who may or may not be dead already? Why, I don’t see that being super frustrating or causing any problems whatsoever. Thankfully, Bautista and Purnell work incredibly well together, and make all the emotional beats land.
Speaking of, Snyder has always had a keen eye for casting, and this is no different. Obviously, Bautista has proved himself to be one of the more compelling actors working today, taking full advantage of the striking juxtaposition between his intimidating physique and his emotive, soft-spoken nature. The other actors brings a lot of personality to the table from Notaro’s cool demeanor and dry witticisms to Schweighöfer’s cheeky awkwardness to Hardwick’s steely and charismatic presence. A lot of these folks aren’t your typical good guys, and in any other zombie film, some might be among the antagonists – in that “man is the real monster” kinda way. Everyone gets a chance to shine, and the way the film disposes some of these characters genuinely caught me off-guard multiple times. I also want to note that Notaro was brought in as a last minute replacement, shooting her scenes practically on her own, and being seamlessly composited into the film as Snyder was completing post-production. It’s wild how well she works here, and it’s a testament to her talent as a performer and the VFX team for making it feel like she was there from the get-go.
Once it’s all said and done, Army Of The Dead succeeds as a whole because it’s a very thrilling, enjoyable, and pulpy action-horror picture. It’s also one that is as unabashedly weird and idiosyncratic as it is operatic and indulgent. Snyder notably marks his first feature as his own cinematographer, and while it might not have the slick splash panel quality that has largely defined his style, his visceral and kinetic camera work utilizes a rather extensive use of shallow depth-of-field that brings a sense of humanity that even some of his previous work that I loved struggled to showcase. He highlights the faces of our characters, and the toll the experience has on them, and it doesn’t shy away from any of the nastiness that unfolds. I also love how it evolves the conceit of what a zombie could be, bringing a hierarchy and intelligence that makes them both more terrifying as well as more eerily human, and certainly more human than other zombie stories that I’ve seen. Zack Snyder is firing on practically all cylinders here, and while it can sometimes feel its length, there is so much to have fun with from the entertaining characters to the gory zombie action that it hardly gives you the opportunity to be bored, maybe overwhelmed, but not bored.
Army Of The Dead is now out on Netflix.