Over the past decade, Zack Snyder has received lots of controversy for his portrayals of iconic superheroes such as Batman and Superman on-screen. For many, he’s a divisive filmmaker who uses extreme style over substance and has no legitimate understanding of Superman and/or Batman’s character traits. For me, his demythologization of Superman, in Man of Steel, painting it as a weapon of mass destruction rather than a messianic figure, is the greatest on-screen iteration of the hero I’ve ever seen on the big screen. It mixes Snyder’s expert visual dynamism through his gravity-defying action sequences with raw emotional power from Henry Cavill’s performance as a vulnerable Man of Steel, whose intentions are so benevolent he does not realize the power he contains can be perceived as dangerous by a world that does not understand him. After releasing his cut of Justice League to the world, Snyder returns to his roots with Netflix’s Army of the Dead, a bokeh-filled zombie-heist actioner, very much structured like a mindless shoot-’em-up video game, that’s terribly fun to watch and destined to become one of Snyder’s very best movies.
After an insanely gory opening credits sequence to the smooth sounds of a Richard Cheese and Allison Crowe cover of Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas”, which sets the stage for what’s to come during the film’s incredible final act, we meet our protagonist: Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), a former mercenary who now works as a cook at a fast food restaurant. His life would drastically change after meeting billionaire entrepreneur Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada), who convinces him to recover $200 million from his casino in Las Vegas, before a nuclear strike hits the city, now plagued by zombies. Ward reunites with his former colleagues, Vanderhoe (Omari Hardwick), Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera), and Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro) to assemble a reliable team who will perform the task at-hand, for a simple in-and-out job that shouldn’t cause any problems. That is, until Tanaka’s right-hand man (Garret Dillahunt) reveals his own agenda he isn’t saying to the team. Meanwhile, Scott’s daughter, Kate (Ella Purnell), drifts away from his father to save her friend puts the mission in jeopardy and quickly turns into a blood-soaked battle between the team and the Alpha Zombies, who are stronger, faster and smarter than the humans. Whilst its pacing could’ve been tightened up just a little bit, once Army of the Dead’s heist starts, the film never lets up and becomes a purely cathartic and exhilarating zombie flick, delivering exactly what it promised to be.
When a zombie movie tries to take itself seriously, there are strong chances that might not work. That’s why the radical shift in tone from an upbeat “Viva Las Vegas” cover to a gloomy one during the opening credits makes a rather tragic scene feel like a caricature, with some of Snyder’s most excessive uses of slow-mo yet. Many of Army of the Dead’s so-called “serious” sequences fall rather flat, due to its overuse of slow-mo which can make the sequences seem silly or unintentionally hilarious, save for one highly effective dramatic moment involving Dave Bautista and Ella Purnell.
As an action star, Bautista shines as Scott Ward, using the opportunity of the heist to rekindle with his daughter, after having distanced himself feeling guilt and remorse for the murder of her mother, who turned into a zombie. We feel Scott’s love for Kate, even if most of the dialogue involved in the father-daughter relationship is terribly clichéd. There’s the classic “I’m coming with you. No you’re not: it’s too dangerous” spiel that almost every action movie involving an overprotective parent distanced from his child has, but the material is elevated by Bautista’s charm and physicality as an action star, which makes the film’s most emotional sequence involving the two feel particularly powerful. Of course, Kate gets in trouble and Scott has to save her (as in every other parent/child action movie ever), but his sheer will and determination to make sure she is as safe as she can be is particularly admirable and adds for great tension during the movie’s action sequences.
I don’t believe anyone who is watching Army of the Dead is doing it for the father/daughter relationship, but rather to watch zombies getting viciously killed in extremely tense situations featuring characters we want to root for (or to simply watch Snyder doing something else than comic-book movies which is a welcomed change of pace for him). In that regard, Army of the Dead succeeds brilliantly. As Tanaka presents the heist operation, a “perfect” montage of the operation through Tom Holkenborg’s incredibly energetic score recalls a survival horror video game cutscene presenting each character traits of playable characters. And once the team ends up in the Quarantine zone, every action set piece is magnificently staged and choreographed just like an interactive video game from Quantic Dream. Snyder, who also acts as the film’s cinematographer, always keeps moving his camera to create excitingly kinetic and breathtaking action sequences that beautifully complement the actors’ expertly choreographed movements inside the frame.
His cinematography, which is a little too reliant on the bokeh lens during many of its talking sequences, lights up once zombies come into play, which are treated with the same mythical sensibilities as Steppenwolf, DeSaad, or Darkseid. Heck, the king of the Alpha Zombies is called Zeus, who wears a protective helmet to avoid being shot in the brain and has his own kingdom inside the Olympus casino. Even if Snyder’s references to Greek mythology in the film are a bit too obvious and on-the-nose (like in all of his other movies), how amazing is it to have a kingdom where zombies worship their strongest one like a Christ-like figure? Snyder never ceases to amaze me with how evident his references to mythology are, yet he still manages to find a way to make it look terribly exciting and important. Whenever Zeus appears with his zombie-horse, you know it’s gonna go down hard. One mistake leads to another and, just like that, pure chaos and catharsis ensues, building up to Snyder’s most vibrant climax since Man of Steel. There are plenty of WHOA (!) moments found during the film’s action sequences, all of them involving gratuitous amounts of blood and guts, in which Snyder excessively bathes himself in. He never holds back on gore, where the film’s most surprising moments will invest the viewer further into the almost depraved world of Las Vegas’ Quarantine Zone.
Army of the Dead isn’t as spectacular as Snyder’s greatest films, Man of Steel and Zack Snyder’s Justice League, as its quasi-clichéd father/daughter arc prevents it from soaring as it should be. The film contains great performances from Dave Bautista, Omari Hardwick, Ella Purnell, and Matthias Schweighöfer as safecracker Ludwig Dieter, who brings some much-needed comedic levity to the film and shares terrific chemistry with Hardwick’s Vanderhoe. And featuring terrific action sequences that fully exalt the zombies’ mythic powers, it could very well be one of Snyder’s least divisive films, as it acts as the perfect kind of midnight madness movie to be experienced with friends who devour these types of movies on a friday night. It does exactly what it promises to be and exceeds expectations in that regard. Refined cinema, if you ask me.
