Army of the Dead (2021)

Director: Zack Snyder
Stars: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Ana de la Reguera
Runtime: 148 minutes

Synopsis: Following a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries takes the ultimate gamble, venturing into the quarantine zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted.

Verdict: The thing that differentiates zombie flicks from other movies that fall in the vast monster subgenre is the fact that, for them to properly work, the focus needs to be turned towards everything surrounding the threat. Undead corpses roaming around are by essence boring to watch, which is why an effort must be made to develop the human characters tasked in confronting them as well as the general tone of the movie. The genre begs for creative input from the people working on them as its traditional horror atmosphere has been recycled into taking a more dramatic or even comedic turn over the years (“Train to Busan” or “Shaun of the Dead” respectively).

In old Zack Snyder fashion, “Army of the Dead” does none of that and spends most of its unnecessarily lengthy 148-minute-long runtime trying to dial up the cool factor to a maximum. The result? An excruciatingly dull first hour that sees Dave Bautista’s character rounding up a team of mercenaries to complete the mission of retrieving a large sum of money hidden in an isolated, zombie-infested Las Vegas. It was clear from the start that the film would struggle to stick to a specific tone as it failed to find a balance between serious and over-the-top. Thankfully, things started to pick up afterward, even if they never quite offered something we haven’t seen before. In fact, the stale cinematography and familiar premise often reminded me of David Ayer’s “Suicide Squad”. Granted, the action was more entertaining and the structure more coherent despite a couple of logical flaws, but that’s nevertheless a comparison you’d be wise to stay away from.

There’s really not much else to say about “Army of the Dead”. It’s a half-tedious, half-dumb fun, fully disposable action flick led by a bunch of two-dimensional individuals trying way too hard to come across as badass characters. Am I ever going to revisit it in the future? No. Do I regret putting it on as a way to kill a couple of hours while preserving my brain cells for some other activity? Ehhhhh, not really.

FINAL GRADE: 4/10