Army of the Dead (2021)

Directed by: Zack Snyder | 148 minutes | action, crime | Actors: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighöfer, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada, Garret Dillahunt, Tig Notaro, Raúl Castillo, Huma Qureshi, Samantha Win

A head-on collision between a messy newlywed couple on a Nevada highway and a military convoy has major consequences. The soldiers from the secret base Area 15 transport a special passenger, who attacks and bites the soldiers. In no time, the American city of Las Vegas has been overrun by zombies. In a long intro, which seems to be a movie in itself, it is shown how the government eventually locks up the city with large shipping containers.

One of the heroes who manages to escape and receives a medal for saving the Secretary of Defense is Scott Ward (Dave Bautista). He works as a cook in a small restaurant and has become estranged from his daughter Kate (Ella Purnell). She works as a volunteer in a refugee camp just outside the new borders of Las Vegas. The government plans to drop an atomic bomb on Las Vegas a few days later, on Independence Day (July 4), to literally wipe the zombies off the map. Reason for casino owner Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) to approach Ward: there is still 200 million dollars in the safe under his casino. If Ward manages to collect it, he can keep 50 million for himself. After some hesitation, Ward assembles a team, starting with his trusted friends Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera) and Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick). To pull off this special casino heist, they need other helpers: helicopter pilot Peters (Tig Notaro), safe-cracker Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), vlogger and sniper Mikey Guzman (Raúl Castillo) and his girlfriend Chambers (Samantha Win). Tanaka also sends his own head of security Martin (Garret Dillahunt) – but he has his own agenda.

Kate also joins the camp: she wants to save a friend who has been kidnapped by the zombies. Through her, the team is complemented by Lily (Nora Arnezeder) and security guard Cummings (Theo Rossi). The team moves into Las Vegas, but the zombies turn out to have a few surprises in store… and of course members of the team die spectacularly.

Before delivering his much-discussed Justice League ‘Snyder Cut’, Zack Snyder shot ‘Army of the Dead’, a combination of casino heist and zombie horror. He is no stranger to the genre. In 2004 he made the strong remake of ‘Dawn of the Dead’.

When filming ‘Army of the Dead’, Snyder was his own cinematographer and it shows: an extravaganza of blood fountains, slow-motion camera shots to capture all the gore and a visually regular breathtaking post-Apocalyptic Las Vegas . Clever references and tributes to classics (including ‘Aliens’, ‘An American Werewolf in London’) and previous zombie films are featured. It is all entertaining, but the film is much too long with a running time of two and a half hours. It is certainly not a slow film, Snyder keeps the action and the tension in it well, but at a certain point the viewer is a bit beaten up. It also doesn’t help that the characters — even for movies like this one — barely get past rough sketches that resemble better-developed characters in other movies. Bautista and Hardwick compete over who exudes the most charisma in their similar roles of “raw-bolster white pit” super-muscled ex-soldiers protecting someone else. While Ward is of course mainly concerned about his daughter, Vanderohe takes the nervous Dieter under his wing.

The film also gives – without revealing anything – new impulses to the zombie genre. You might even wonder whether the creatures that appear in the film are actual ‘zombies’, or an evolutionary alternative human species. In addition, Snyder lays out a number of plot lines and ideas, especially Vanderohe’s theory about the status of the mission and the team is a very intriguing one.

The makers are now preparing a prequel and a semi-spinoff (possibly as a series) around certain characters from the film. And when the credits kick in to the tunes of Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds”, a sequel also seems to be in the offing.