It’s great to see Zack Snyder getting more love and attention than he’s ever had before in his life working as a director. If you’ve been of his work going all the way back to his remake of Dawn of the Dead, then this should make you even more thrilled to call yourself a Zack Snyder fan. Some may not know this but there was a time in Hollywood where Zack Snyder wasn’t this beloved filmmaker to which now some people will call him today. Critically, his movies generally got the same response and his movie were still bringing in profit, excluding Watchmen and Sucker Punch. The divisiveness of Snyder probably stems all the way back to when Man of Steel was coming out. It still brought in enough dough to warrant a continuation with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but the response from the majority of critics and fans, Warner Bros. wasn’t prepared for the polarization that Man of Steel received. And if that wasn’t enough, the response to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was not what Warner Bros. hoped for and it then left the studio and Zack Snyder in a really sticky situation. Years later, after fans demanding and the release of HBO Max, Zack Snyder’s definitive and true cut of Justice League was released earlier this year and satisfied the people who were clamoring to see the more faithful version of Justice League than the one we got in 2017. Over the last 10 years, Zack Snyder started off as a divisive director who is gradually getting to a pedigree of respect and admiration, more so than about three or four years ago and with Zack Snyder’s Justice League and Netflix’s Army of the Dead, it’s safe to say that Zack Snyder is in a much better and healthier position as a director and 2021 will be a solid year for him. Plus, Army of the Dead is his best film to date. Army of the Dead is Zack Snyder’s most Snyder movie to date. It delivers on epic & brutal zombie action, terrific visuals, a unique production design and great performances from the entire ensemble. It pays homages to an amalgamation of every Zombie to date, while keeping it fresh and exciting.
After a terrible zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a team of mercenaries are up for one of the most dangerous and risky gamble by wandering into the city to pull off maybe the greatest heist by retrieving $200 million from a casino vault before the military nukes the entire destroy.
Army of the Dead is also an absolute blast from start to finish. Despite the movie being two and half hours, Zack Snyder is able to deliver on a tight, fast paced and non bloated heist film with his signature written all over the movie. It’s constructed well with and it doesn’t loose any focus. The biggest issue, however, with Army of the Dead is that there’s maybe 15 minuets of this movie that could have been trimmed down a bit. There are moments where scenes feel a bit extended than they normally should and it felt like the scene didn’t need any more extension to it, so the runtime is the biggest issue but not by much. With all that being said, Army of the Dead delivers on what the titles promises and what people adore about Zack Snyder’s style. One thing that most people would agree, even people who aren’t fans of Snyder’s work, are his visuals, and visually speaking, Army of the Dead is a gorgeous motion picture. Snyder pays a great amount of weight to the classic zombie movies while still being in the vein of a true Zack Snyder flick, thereby giving it a modern flavor that modern audiences will find more appealing. Army of the Dead also marks Zack Snyder as the cinematographer for the first time and tactics and methods he does are reminiscent of his style from his previous movies but also feels reconditioning.
This movie is also extremely gory and incredibly violent. Zack Snyder holds no bars on the gore and showcases the complete ruthlessness and brutality of the zombie horde. It innovates its usage of zombies by revamping the wheel on how audiences perceive them in film medium. One of the aspects that this movie does well is the variety of zombies we get. In Army of the Dead, you have the classic zombies that would be best fit from George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, the ones who are much slower and have the stupid like mentality. You’ve got zombies like the one from Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, the ones who are fast and maybe a bit more remorseless. But then you have the zombies that serve more as a threat to humans than one might expect and these zombies, in Army of the Dead, are listed as Alphas. These zombies are smarter, more in control and have essentially created a kingdom out of the ruins of Las Vegas. The zombies don’t feel like an after thought or a visual background. The zombies feel more intimatiding than almost any zombie you can think in any recent movie or TV show, which then leads to some of the best zombie action ever put to screen. The action in this movie would be best equated if you took John Wick and World War Z and combined them together. The action is epic, balls to the wall and incredibly innovative.
The production design is also Zack Snyder’s most interesting and appeasing playground to date. Just like how Snyder utilizes his zombies, the sets of this movie have this classic layer to it and a face lift that would be best fit through the modern context.
We love Dave Bautisa as Drax and some might be a fan of his work from the WWE, but absolutely crushes it in this movie. Dave Bautista is an absolute rockstar in Army of the Dead. He’s an absolute bad ass in every action scene and he surprisingly displays some range as the lead figure in the movie. He’s not at thespian level just yet, and he may not be where Dwayne Johnson is at but this is by far his best and most entertaining character yet, even over Drax. But event the rest of the ensemble works well together and it almost is exactly the kind of movie that Suicide Squad should have been, in the sense of teaming up a bunch of mercenaries and hired gunman to do a dangerous job that would be way above people’s pay grade. The team ensemble is terrific and it makes you want to see these characters on screen again.
Army of the Dead Zack Snyder’s best movie since Man of Steel. It delivers the goods on what Snyder is truly capable of. Great visuals, spectacular action, a great dynamic within his cast & and tons of fun. Everything in this movie is made for the theatrical experience.
My grade for Army of the Dead: A
Zane's take at the Cinema's 