Rating: B+
It baffles the mind to consider that it’s been 17 years since Zack Snyder burst into the cinematic scene with Dawn of the Dead. The action-packed remake/reimagining/whatever of the George A. Romero classic was nothing if not a gauntlet thrown. For the director, it served as a statement of intent. He wanted to reinvigorate the concept of the blockbuster by reconstructing it in his own image: bold, brash, ballsy. For the zombie subgenre it represented a new direction, taking its cues from Romero and 28 Days Later—the Danny Boyle movie that single-handedly brought zombies back into the popular consciousness—in equal measure.
The undead has never been the same since. Then again, one could argue that neither has Snyder.
One would be hard pressed to think of a director more polarizing than Snyder, who has built his career proving that he can always be bolder, brasher, and ballsier. The effect has been, to say the least, divisive. From his adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300, to his adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen, Snyder has built a career by bringing to life the supposed impossible—up to and including allowing us to see Batman and Superman exchange blows and mother’s names in equal measure.
While his films tend to be an anathema to the snobs, we cannot deny that he has his appeal. Rare is the maker of popular film as beloved as Snyder. His army of fans spent years bullying Warner Brothers to #ReleaseTheSnyderCut of Justice League following Joss Whedon’s disastrous reworking of the superhero tentpole, until finally the studio relented. Much the shock of many, his 4-hour version of the DC team up was, well, pretty great.
Snyder is, if nothing else, a director who knows what he wants and tends to get it. Which brings us to his latest film that, itself, brings us back round to his first. Army of the Dead, which is not a sequel to Dawn of the Dead but also is not not a sequel to Dawn of the Dead, marks Snyder’s return to the genre that first brought him acclaim, as well as Snyder’s first non-adapted work since 2011’s Suckerpunch. It is bombastic as Snyder has ever been and, like so much of his work, is pretty great if you can get over how stupid it is.
Army of the Dead opens with an extended sequence that plays out largely as one might expect of a traditional zombie horror. Zombie gets loose, chaos reigns. The opening credit sequence/establishing montage (something of a trademark for Snyder) works as a condensed version your typical zombie escape story. Set in Las Vegas, we watch a group of survivors, including Dave Bautista’s Scott Ward, fight their way through hoards of brain eating ghouls to safety. The City of Sin is safely quarantined and now the president has ordered a nuke to be dropped in four days, just in time for the Fourth of July.
That gives Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) minimal time to have Scott assemble a team to infiltrate the city to recover $200 million currently locked in the basement vault of his namesake hotel. Haunted by what he needed to do to survive the initial outbreak and desperate for a new life, Scott agrees. Now the fun can begin. If you can imagine what it might have looked like if Romero himself had directed Ocean’s 11 then you have a fairly decent idea of what you’re getting.
Despite being a part of a genre that’s been beaten into the ground relentlessly for the past two decades, Army of the Dead has kind of a lot going for it. Nuance may not be Snyder’s forte, but he can be creative when he wants to. Admittedly, “zombie heist movie” sounds like the kind of pitch that might be thrown around by a group of 20-somthings hitting the bong on a Tuesday night, but heretofore no one has had the hubris to actually attempt it. Let alone pull it off.
There’s no denying that Army of the Dead is a fun movie. That feels built into the movie’s DNA. You’d have to be to pull off something like this. Which makes Bautista perfect casting. Ever since his days with the WWE, Bautista has always kind of been the anti-Rock. That feels as true today as it did at the height of his wrestling career. Where Dwayne Johnson (charming as he can be) always feels like he’s just trying to enlarge the Dwayne Johnson Brand, Bautista seems primarily focused on choosing roles that he can bring the most to, and this one is no different.
While not exactly an everyman, his portrayal of Scott Ward is relatable and vulnerable. He’s not just an unstoppable badass, he’s an unstoppable badass with trauma and pathos. There’s something there that makes the audience immediately empathize with him and want to see him succeed. Perhaps especially because seeing him succeed means seeing him mow down uncountable numbers of walking dead.
As with every zombie movie, however, there are characters that make baffling decisions and you can pretty much tell who’s going to die and who’s going to turn heel pretty much from the first moment. Though at times this makes the story feel contrived, Snyder and his cast inject just enough into the familiar to make you willing to overlook the (many, many) flaws inherent in the film.
None of which can ever be enough to win of the Snyder detractors, who are arguably just as vocal and obnoxious as his most ardent supporters. In this end, this is the movie that Snyder wanted to make and it is, perhaps, the Snyderiest Snyder movie yet made. That’s either great or terrible news depending on who you are, and I’m increasingly of the opinion that Snyder could care less what anyone thinks so long as he’s pleased. In that regard, I can’t imagine he’s anything but thrilled with how Army of the Dead shakes out.
Army of the Dead is now streaming on Netflix.
