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Army of the Dead Movie Review

Army of the Dead is a 2021 zombie heist film directed by Zack Snyder and starring Dave Bautista. It’s widely uneven, but also genuinely memorable in certain parts.

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“Listen, I hate my life so deeply,

if I had two million dollars,

my life would change drastically“

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After a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries takes the ultimate gamble by venturing into the quarantine zone for the greatest heist ever. This is one of the better Snyder movies, but one that still has his usual problems that plague most of his productions – the pacing is a mess, the quality of some parts is uneven and the runtime is needlessly excessive. Two and a half hours for a zombie movie? Yeah, that choice was ridiculous.

The beginning of this movie is incredible. Wow, was I impressed by it. Two soldiers get attacked by a vicious zombie, they both become infected and all three look at the lights of Las Vegas, ready to conquer it. In the next credits sequence, we get to see everything that happened afterward and how the city became zombified in what is literally a whole movie within a movie. It was operatic and bold, and it really worked.

It’s a shame, then, that the rest of the movie never came close to that level of brilliance. There are some crazy zombie designs and little tidbits that were gruesome and quite striking, but for the most part the horror elements relied on the gore way too much. The film also has way too many characters for it to work properly with most fading in the background.

I did not like Dave Bautista’s performance here whatsoever. He is best in the more reduced and funny roles, and this was everything but that. He is in the entire movie throughout and he got a very emotional role, thus he could not pull it off properly. Others are mostly forgettable, but the film needs to be commended for its international cast of actors and actresses.

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Army of the Dead is incredibly well shot, especially the action/horror scenes that are kinetic and super fun. The direction is big and loud, but it works for this type of silly blockbuster experience. The soundtrack is also excellent and the mythology and the zombies themselves are different enough that the film felt refreshing.

Army of the Dead has all of the hallmarks of a typical Zack Snyder production. It is overly bombastic, way too long for a zombie flick and highly uneven in the quality of its parts, but the visuals and the soundtrack are both excellent while the movie’s mythology is quite good. The highlight here is that incredible beginning that will go down in blockbuster history as one of the best. It’s a shame that the rest of the flick could never rival that bold opening.

My Rating – 3.5