TAS Reviews: Army of The Dead

TAS Reviews: Army of The Dead

The name Zack Snyder is capable of eliciting either the strongest emotions of love or hate within a movie-goer. To most, Zack Snyder is a misguided director with beautiful visuals and style but nothing to offer in terms of substance: the equivalent of a car-manufacturer who creates beautiful looking cars with broken engines. But to a niche group of audiences, Zack Snyder is a misunderstood genius, who crafts compelling deconstructions of existing genres and characters, which the majority of general audiences are just incapable of appreciating. I identify more with the former group. Zack Snyder, to me, if not the worst mainstream director in Hollywood today, is the one who has done most harm to me as a movie-goer. Because unlike a Michael Bay type-figure, who ruined a franchise I've never cared about in Transformers, Zack Snyder is responsible for squandering the live-action interpretations of Superman and Batman, including their first ever live-action crossover, on the big screen, with Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman, two movies which fail on almost every aspect of storytelling.

Up until 2021, even Snyder's more beloved movies, such as Dawn of The Dead and 300, didn't work for me. Outside of Watchmen, I just couldn't bring myself to enjoy anything Snyder-related, despite him seeming like a genuinely nice dude with good creative intentions. Then Zack Snyder's Justice League came out. Which, despite not being a "good" movie, was at least an okay one, which unlike most Snyder films, understood the basic fundamentals of storytelling. It felt like a step in the right direction for Snyder, which admittedly made me excited for Army of The Dead. Although I wasn't expecting AoTD to be a "good" movie, I was curious and open to the possibility that it could be. I was curious to see if Snyder would continue his upward trajectory, I liked the concept and premise and as a fan of what Dave Bautista has delivered in the Marvel movies, Spectre and Blade Runner: 2049, I was excited to see him lead his own movie. So, how does this movie hold up?

Surprisingly, it holds up pretty well! Army of The Dead, though far from being a perfect or even a great movie, is a solid, enjoyable movie, and the first "good" movie in Snyder's filmography since Watchmen, and there are a couple of reasons why. I mentioned earlier in this review that Snyder isn't interesting in conventional interpretations of iconic characters or genres. Snyder is a filmmaker who thrives on deconstruction and reinterpretation. Though this has been described by some as his weakness, particularly in the DCEU movies, in Army of The Dead, it is his greatest strength. Snyder crafts an interesting take on the zombie genre, with zombies who are smart, methodical and almost humane.

I don't want to get into too much detail about how this manifests itself in the movie, but this take on the monsters serves as not only a gimmick, but an interesting way of breathing new life into one, if not the most, used monster archetypes in the horror genre. One of my favourite aspects of the movie is it's world building, as the movie establishes pretty early on that there are different types of zombies, adding an additional layer of depth and complexity to the movie. The make-up team also did a fantastic job with the unique zombie designs in the movie. I know it's still far out, but if the Academy Awards were hosted tomorrow, I would without hesitation award Army of The Dead with the make-up and hairstyling award. Even the staunchest Zack Snyder movies will admit the dude can direct a hell of an action sequence, and Army of The Dead is no exception. As we've come to expect, the action feels visceral, it has weight too it and is an absolute joy to watch.

Piggy-backing off of what I said earlier in the review, one of the main reasons I was excited about Army of The Dead was to see Dave Bautista helm his own movie. Thankfully, he did not disappoint, adding yet another great performance to his mantle, and showcasing his ability to lead his own movie. Despite his insane physicality, there is something so vulnerable about Bautista's performance, and it's that contrast between his psychically and his vulnerability that makes Bautista such a unique performer, and Army of The Dead is the biggest example of that. He does equal justice to the smaller, emotional moments of the screenplay as he does when his character is jumping across tables shooting zombies in badass fashion. Though Dave Bautista is the lead of the film, Army of The Dead is closer to an ensemble movie than anything else, so it's important to talk about the rest of the cast, most of who did a solid job: Ella Purnell, Huma Queshi, Ana de la Reguera, Omari Hardwick, Nora Arnezeder, Theo Rossi and Raúl Castillo all did justice to the material and the cast generally shared solid chemistry with one another.

I could've guessed that the cast would be solid and the zombies would be great, but there was something I loved about this movie which I could've never prepared myself for. Most mainstream blockbusters nowadays lack stakes. The protagonists have plot armour, and never suffer any consequences for any of their actions. The threat never feels real, because the heroes can plough their way through anything effortlessly with a badass smirk on their face. Army of The Dead genuinely has stakes. The threat doesn't just feel real. It is real. It was great to watch an action movie with consequences, and it lead to an unpredictable experience. At a certain point, I just It expected I have no idea what was going to happen next, and enjoyed the tension that provided. It made me wish more movies were this bold. Last of all, Zack Snyder's issues as a filmmaker generally lay in his terrible structuring, pacing and characterisation. Army of The Dead features the best of these elements in any Zack Snyder movie in a long time, perhaps ever. The movie is well-paced, well-structured (taking time to set-up it's pay-off's and paying off it's set-up's) and the characterisation at least functions on a basic level, providing a competent if unremarkable, uninspired arc for our lead character.

Though I enjoyed this movie, it's not without it's problems - all of which prevented this from being a great movie. For the first time in his career, Zack Snyder was the cinematographer/director of photography in Army of The Dead, and this leads to mixed results. Although the first 15 minutes of this movie feature some of the most stunning cinematography I've seen in a long time, the proceeding 2 hours and 15 minutes feature some of the weakest visuals in a Zack Snyder movie (which is odd because movies aren't filmed chronologically). A lot of the shots were uninspired at worst, and at best, difficult to look at. Snyder's movies are often criticised for being too visually dark, but this is the first time where I felt the visuals were just too damn dark. There are conversations where you can't even see the characters faces because they're just completely buried in dark, so it feels like watching a conversation between two silhouettes. The soundtrack, another aspect which is usually a highlight in Snyder's movies, specifically his DCEU ones, was almost surprisingly uninspired and did nothing to compliment the movie.

I mentioned that this movie had some of the best characterisation in a Zack Snyder movie. Unfortunately, that is less a compliment of this movie, and more a testament to how bad his other movies are in this field. Because the characterisation in this movie falls flat. All of the characters outside of Bautista's feel severely underdeveloped, and I found it hard to care about any of them, which undermined my investment in the stakes of the movie. Two characters were just flat out terrible. One is a character who felt like an offensive stereotype of what a German character should act and sound like (down to the "occasionally throws in German words" mixed in with English stereotype) and the second being Tig Notaro's character. For context, Tig Notaro's character was meant to be played by Chris D'elia (who used to be one of my favourite comedians and podcasters." Unfortunately, like half of Hollywood, Chris D'elia was exposed for being a total creep, which meant that using green screen, they had to re-film all of D'elia's scenes with Tig Notaro. Though praise is deserved for how well they pulled this off from a technical standpoint, the casting just doesn't work. Anytime her character showed up, it felt like an old lady doing a terrible Chris D'elia impression, which is essentially what happened. I wish they could've found a better replacement, or at least re-written the character to make her less D'elia-esque.

Conclusion

Though Zack Snyder still has a lot of room for growth as a filmmaker, Army of The Dead continues his upward trajectory. It is a solid heist-zombie movie, with a unique, fresh take on a conventional genre, a great lead performance from Dave Bautista, an all-around solid supporting cast, fantastic action sequences and a genuine sense of stakes. It suffers from underdeveloped characters, an uninspired score and underwhelming cinematography, but although these are weaknesses of the movie, it is still a fun time that, for the most part, plays into Snyder's strengths as a filmmaker, and even improves on some of his most recurring issues as a filmmaker: namely pacing, structure and even better-than-usual character building. I would recommend Army of The Dead.

Score: 7/10

Thanks for reading this review! I hope you enjoyed :) Have you watched Army of The Dead? If so, leave your opinion about the movie below. And take care xD

@theamazingspidey: I'm gonna watch AOTD soon, but what surprised me most is that the more unfavourable reviews for it aren't really coming from the usual suspects, i.e. film critics. The unfavourable reviews are coming from the general audience instead. AOTD sits at a 'nice' RT score of 69%, with an 'audience score' of 75%. But that only shows the audiences that went to the cinema and bought a ticket, about 300 verified ticket-buyers in total. However, when you click the 'all audiences' score, it's actually 57%. That's actually a 'bad' audience score for a movie to have, e.g. other films regarded as bad by the general audience have similar rt audience scores such as DarkPhoenix56%, Suicide Squad 59%. Hell, BvS has an rt audience of 63+%. This is reinforced by AOTD's imdb ratings, which sit at 5.9/10. That's almost the same score as Dark Phoenix and Suicide Squad. In layman terms, the general audience believe AOTD is as bad as films like DP and SS. Keep in mind DP and SS got ~25% critic scores on RT(thus panned by critics and audiences alike), whilst AOTD has 69%. Baffling indeed.

@darkitect01: I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed this! I went on the internet after watching the movie and all I saw was people trashing it, despite it having good reviews. No idea why lol.

Great movie. Cinematography did not disappoint for sure.

Fair review. I'd personally give it a 6; the action was pretty good and Dave Bautista gives what's probably one of his better performances, but the story being complete nonsense really takes away from my enjoyment. "Beautiful looking car with broken engine" is pretty much a perfect metaphor for this movie.

Honestly, I feel the opposite way from you. I'm someone who generally really likes Snyder. DOTD, Watchmen, MOS, the BVS UE, and ZSJL are movies I'm extremely positive towards, and even 300 I lean in favour of, in spite of the fact that it's not the sort of film I'd typically enjoy, and probably would have disliked under another director. This movie though... this was terrible. The plot is ridiculous, the characters are about as compelling as cardboard, and even the visuals are sub-par. The only praise I can give to it is that the action is tense, and some of the humour and use of irony was actually quite entertaining. For those reasons I'm inclined to say that it's not quite as bad as SP, but it is far and away the worst I've seen from Snyder since that car crash of a movie.

@nevesytneves: that’s completely fair, dude. I can totally understand where you’re coming from. But as an earlier user mentioned in this thread, I’ve been surprised to see that critics have been kinder to this movie than audience members on the internet have. Would’ve expected the opposite.

@staticspeedstrr: Cinematography was so inconsistent to be honest

@mrmonster: the plot didn’t make much sense lol

i thought it was a great movie that brought a few creative ideas to the genre :)

@amazing_webhead: Glad you liked it too!

I actually thought you would have disliked this one. Personally, I never like zombie movies because they're usually braindead and lack a provoking story, but Army of the Dead was pretty good.

What did you think of A Quiet Place Part 2? Because personally, I found it well acted especially for both kid actors: Noah Jupe in particular nearly brought a tear to my eye.

Glad you enjoyed it too. I wasn't expecting to like it much either lol.

I've gotten the chance to watch A Quiet Place 2 but I haven't had the time to sit down and write a review, but I'll get around to doing that soon, so look out!