This post discusses the plot and ending of Army Of The Dead.
Zack Snyder’s Army Of The Dead hit Netflix last weekend, and with it, a reminder that the director of DC’s dour superhero films is capable of delivering some solid entertainment when not beholden to a comic-book universe for which his full vision always struggled to be realized. His Las Vegas-set zombie movie is nothing if not a steady payout of violence and nihilistic brutality with gruesome set pieces and a steadily accruing body count that not only makes good on the “army” promised by its title, but also suggests its ranks will eventually expand beyond the Mojave Desert (and into a potential sequel). Between this and the Dawn Of The Dead remake that kicked off Snyder’s feature-film career, the director seems to be at his best when centering his movies around characters that don’t require any interior life, soul, nuance, or… well, character.
This lack of concern for any humanity makes for a strength in Army Of The Dead, the same way it hamstrung Man Of Steel, Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Those movies depended on characters’ internal struggles being just as meaningful as their outward battles against evil (and one another), which is why they so often fell flat. Interiority just isn’t a Snyder strong suit; even in Dawn Of The Dead, the fact that several of the characters actually possessed some richness of soul felt like more of a result of James Gunn’s script than anything Snyder brought to the table. In fact, those conflicting sensibilities—Gunn’s goofball humanism and Snyder’s glum anti-humanism—are what make the film pop. Army Of The Dead, by contrast, uses its moments of levity less to provide wit or soul to the proceedings, and more to offer some acerbic breathing room in between the relentlessness of its propulsion and feeling of inescapable inevitability of death coming for all players. The jokes are more “jokes”—chances to play up the absurdity of the situation without betraying anything so prosaic as a character having multiple layers to their identity.
You can’t ascribe more than one personality trait to the characters in Army Of The Dead, outside of maybe Dave Bautista’s Ward—and that’s only if “regret” and “sadness” count as two separate qualities. His daughter Kate (Ella Purnell) likes to help people. Ward’s old buddies Maria (Ana de la Reguera) and Vanderohe (Omari Hardwicke) want money. Oh, wait, so does chopper pilot Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro). So do a lot of the folks who sign on to brave Vegas’ zombie-infested streets in order to nab $200 million from a casino vault, save for duplicitous operative Martin (Garret Dillahunt), who’s only real definable characteristic is “loves sabotaging everything, including himself.” And then there’s safecracker Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), whose personality seems to be “not tough”?
And yet none of this weakens the film. Sure, the best action movies, like Die Hard, revolve around fully realized, three-dimensional, flesh-and blood heroes. But those are the exception to the rule. John Wick is more or less a Terminator who turned human long enough to want revenge. The Raid has all the character depth of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, because it doesn’t need any to work its way up a high-rise with ruthless bombast. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his band of tough-talking mercs in Predator are basically sentient bags of testosterone. By this measure, there’s nothing wrong with Snyder’s approach to zombies, which is to take a bunch of character types so stock they might as well wear name tags bearing their defining trait, and dispatch them with grimdark efficiency. Sometimes those identifying marks are written right into the dialogue, like when Marianne sardonically refers to herself as “the helicopter guy.”
Like James Cameron’s Aliens—to which Army Of The Dead is so indebted that it should probably be paying royalties—Snyder takes the trappings of a horror film and uses them to execute an action movie of entertainingly over-the-top kineticism and bravado. One of the first major set pieces comes as the group is trying to quietly make its way through a morass of “sleeping” zombies in the back areas of the casino. When Martin tricks badass fighter Chambers (Samantha Win) into going down the wrong route alone and waking the zombies, his nefarious plan seems to work—it appears she succumbs to the horde’s outstretched arms. But when we cut back to the main group, Chambers bursts through a pane of glass, and it looks as though Martin’s scheme will be exposed. But no, it’s just so she can die in front of her comrades, no further character elements enriched or plot deepened. We barely knew her to begin with, so the loss—involving an act of self-sacrifice and a grenade—is more meant to elicit a “Wow.” She may as well be a grenade herself.
There’s another great moment when Snyder’s empty vessels flee from zombies on the casino floor. One of the foremost symbols of capitalist avarice plays backdrop to the director’s signature flair for splash-page tableaux (one of the few saving graces of his comic-book movies), as human battles zombie for stakes in which the audience has no real investment, because who cares if these people we barely know get rich or not? When Guzman (Raul Castillo) detonates his grenades to kill as many zombies as possible, there’s no regret at his death, only glee at the explosion. Whoever loses, we win.
And that’s why the film actually works relatively well, for what it is. By driving home the thematic hollowness at the core of just about every character—emphasized by their mirror images in the undead-yet-thinking Alpha zombies menacing them—Snyder has once more made a zombie movie that suggests the only thing separating these money-hungry dullards from the flesh-eating undead is a pulse. Thankfully, he does so while delivering enough daffy thrills and gore to quicken ours.
132 Comments
Still doesn’t excuse giving Sean Spicer, a fascist collaborator, money to do a two minute scene that could have easily been done by any dumpy looking white man and probably for less money.He had the foresight to edit out the rapist but not the fascist.
“Bro, you know what would be extreme, Bro? Sean Spicer would be extreme, Bro!” ~ Zack Snyder
I’ve listened to a lot of Snyder interviews, and panels. And never once have I ever heard the guy use the term “bro”, ever.
Bro, you’ve wasted so much time, bro.
It’s amazing, the ZS in their heads bears absolutely zero relationship to reality. I’m assuming these posters got swirlied by a guy in a Hanes v-neck in high school, and this is all repressed trauma bubbling up
I’ve listened to a lot of Snyder interviewsThat explains many, many things. Doesn’t excuse those things, but it does explain them.
Better hit the dismiss button on VW0. He’s a Snyder Cultist with an obsession with harassing people who so much as call Snyder a “poopoo head”.
My wife once said that a person doesn’t need to say the N-word if all their actions are screaming the N-word. So it is with Zak Snyder and “bro.”
All the sneering at Ray Fisher on here was screaming the N-word pretty loud imo
Some Snyder fans just have an unhealthy parasocial relationship with Snyder don’t they? They act like their grandmother will be killed and dismembered right in front of their eyes if even one random schmuck online calls Snyder a “poopoo head”.If anything, the Snyder Cult being so antagonistic to defend the honor of a guy who they only know through his movies and not through any personal relationship has actually sullied Snyder’s rep even more than his critics.
Snyder brings out the worst in his supporters and defenders.See: Laserface1242
There’s a cosplayer I follow who is the spitting image of Gal Gadot. So of course she does Wonder Woman cosplays. BUT she is a full on Snyder toxic cult member and it makes me sad to see it.
Pretty sure the ‘cult’ here are the weirdos who flock to every Snyder article to whinge and moan and fill their diapers
Come on! Pull my other leg! Are you trying to tell me that a Snyder fan is toxic?!
They should have gone with the Mooch
Spicer on screen turned my stomach more than any of the gore. FUCK Spicer, he needs to be unceremoniously forgotten forever.
He needs to be yeeted into the sun.
Wait fucking seriously? I’ve seen a bunch of reviews/comments on this and not once was this jackass’ cameo mentioned.
Hey, hey. Spicer was one of the best White House Easter Bunnies we’ve ever had. Pity about his later career (and vendetta against Dippin’ Dots).
How can you have a vendetta against Dippin’ Dots?! It’s the ice cream of the future!
Sean Spicer was shot in focus, so it was too much effort to edit him in, as opposed to Chris D’Rapist, who was out of focus in every shot.
Remember when Dawn of the Dead had that evangelical preacher on tv that was just spouting bullshit, but it wasn’t serving anything related to satire or mockery?
It absolutely totally was satire and mockery when Ken Foree did his spiel. He wasn’t doing “wukka wukka” arms, so perhaps it was too subtle. Also it was Ken Foree spinning his original hoodoo theory, so it was apt.
I’m going to add this to the pile of articles that point out why Snyder films are bad but insist that their many flaws don’t matter.
Yeah, I really don’t understand how many “Army of the Dead is pretty good” takes I’ve seen. It was a mostly workmanlike rip-off of better movies marred by weird camera choices, giant plot holes, and unthinking nihilism. Critics seem bizarrely invested in excusing his mediocrity.
its getting to be quite the pile. I attribute it to Hot Take-itis. Gotta come at things from a fresh angle to get the hits. And damned if it didn’t work
“And that’s why the film actually works relatively well, for what it is. By being bad at what it does, it’s good in some sense.”
Add this to the contractually obligated puff pieces.
It was not very good. Drop the annoying daddy/daughter storyline along with a bunch of needless details and you have a solid 90 minute zombie flick. Ending was pretty lame too. Nuking the zombies is a cop out ending that rotld did better 35 years ago. Maybe Dawn being so good got my hopes up too high for this. It did have a few cool moments I guess.
So it was pretty good…but it needs to lose most of it’s runtime and make tons of changes to really be good. I haven’t even watched it, just thought this was funny.
Drop an hour of yapping and it’s pretty good. As is it’s an hour too long and boring for stretches. I rated it 5/10.
Nuking the zombies is a cop out ending that rotld did better 35 years ago.
I don’t see how it’s a cop-out when it’s established from the very beginning as the entire reason the heist has a time limit. It’s not a deus ex machina, the announcement of the nuke about four minutes into the movie is one of the catalysts of the plot.
Biggest issue with the heist element is that its not a heist. The time limit was imposed in the middle of the story, by the way. Weird way to run a ticking clock element
And it suddenly jumped from a day or two until the nuke hit to, what, 90 minutes? That was really clumsy.
The joke with Return is that nuking doesn’t destroy them, it will just spread the poison more.
In the sequel they build a wall along the border with Mexico.
So all his characters are Republican politicians?
The movie has a couple bits that made me laugh, and one of them is when a newscast is discussing the President deciding to nuke Vegas on the 4th of July, and though they don’t explicitly name Trump, the President is quoted as saying a nuclear explosion on July 4th will be “pretty cool” and “actually kind of patriotic if you think about it.”
This was _the_ good line in the movie
Tig made me laugh a few times also, but its hard to tell if that was the lines or just down to her. I did enjoy her whole bit about which characters’ lives are the most important/valuable, but like a lot of other moments in the movie it was the seed of a neat idea/commentary/possible subversion that never grew into any kind of payoff (kept waiting for some kind of pay off on the WTF robot zombie, and NOTHING).
“Honey, movie’s on!”“What is it?”“Two and a half hours of punishing, loud, dumb nonsense lacking soul or thought.”“Snyder again?”“Yeah.”[Stinger]“I want a divorce.”
Snyder’s merits are few and far between, but none of them are things that other directors can’t also do, while simultaneously being better then he is at the things he’s bad at, which is most of them.Snyder is the Platonic ideal of a competent director who has expanded into the parts of filmmaking he’s incompetent at, but has enough industry muscle to make people let him do things he’s bad at.
“Snyder is the Platonic ideal of a competent director who has expanded
into the parts of filmmaking he’s incompetent at, but has enough
industry muscle to make people let him do things he’s bad at.”No, that’s Ron Howard. Snyder’s the guy that makes me wish I was watching a Michael Bay movie instead. And not one of the good ones.
You know, you’re right. I watched Howard’s Rush, and it’s one of the rare times I wish a movie were – a biopic, no less – was actually longer. He picks a few things from the Hunt/Lauda relationship, and there’s some great moments…“Uh.”…but it mostly just glosses over everything, changes major things for some cheap tension (like manufacturing the entire conflict, the core of the story, between Nikki and James…), and leaves the interesting parts of the relationship out. It’s like Ronny just said “This Hunt-Lauda thing, gimme the gist of it” and then went to work.
No, that’s Ron Howard. Snyder’s the guy that makes me wish I was watching a Michael Bay movie instead. And not one of the good ones. This may be the best statement ever made on these comment sections!
Like the idea that you can get promoted up to a job you’re really bad at, and stay there cuz no-one wants to fire you *or promote you any further.
Yep! The Peter Principle!
Beat me to it.
Another one for the “failing upward” school of directors.
Snyder is a bit like M. Night, great examples of how NOT to make a movie. So many dubious decisions….
I dunno, his movies are pretty to look at, in a unique way. I always think of him as the new Tony Scott. Ultimately empty movies, but always aesthetically pleasing. He’d be a really good old school MTV video director.
Well, that made for a fun episode of RLM. That’s all we ask, at this point.
Counterpoint: Zach Snyder is at his best when he doesn’t write the script.Compare and contrast Army of the Dead with Dawn of the Dead (2004).
It was an hour too long.The characters were stock one-dimensional stereotypes.A grocery list of plot holes and unexplained shenanigans like cyborg zombies. WTF?Overall, it was kind of boring. As Mike and Jay mentioned in their HITB review, if they made the about the fall of Vegas, like in the opening credits montage, it would’ve been a helluva lot more interesting in fun but as such, very little happens in the movie that let’s us know they’re in Vegas, so what was the point?
Snyder is a more extreme Abrams: the latter is only good at starting things, and the former is more specifically only good at opening montages.
JJ Abrams has plenty of writing credits where things actually happen and people don’t just walk down hallways.
Agreed. Once again, a zed story that breaks all its own rules and makes little sense. Alpha zed was somehow alien from Area 51. Semi truck and Mercury explode like a Michael Bay flick for no reason and all the soldiers are turned zed in mins. We see that happen fast but then Bautista takes awhile to turn and Hardwicke seemingly takes many hours. WTF with the glowing blue eyes … why did that suddenly pop up? WTF with the glowing dead zed baby … why did that suddenly pop up? Zombie horse? Did an herbivore suddenly develop a taste for meat in order to live? Why not show sprinklers turn on or localized rain storm after the mini nuke bring all those dessicated zeds back to life … that was just left out there to rot.Did we see what happened to Gita at the end? Kate’s whole modus is to save Gita and we see nothing of her in heli crash or even a tear wept for her demise. What was Alpha Zed gonna do with his bride’s separated head … he already eviscerated the dead bod so was he just gonna keep it around to talk to when lonely? How did alphas stay juicy? Did they feed off of the slackers/draggers (I don’t need to remember their name) or what was keeping them kicking … no new blood but they sure were a healthy lot sprinting & parkouring through the strip. And if the slumbering zeds were roused by being brushed up against why didn’t they come out in force with all the explosions, yelling, and general mayhem happening in the casino? Ugh, I hate zombie movies but I keep watching them. I’m just as brainless.
Don’t forget “Buzz Saw Jones and the Giant Refrigerator,” although the drawn-out payoff to that was probably my favorite part of the film.
Chain saw guy didn’t even use his chain saw after the montage. It’s like Snyder wrote that escape by diamond chainsaw bit part and then went back to the montage to make sure a character had one, just to justify its existence, but it was too late to film anything other than Dillahaunt holding it for that second.
True. Using it to cut through a wall was a bit of a let down.
Was it really a “payoff” though; or was it just a stapled-on, lame hook for a sequel, Snyder being Snyder…?
No-one’s mentioned that: why the hell do some of them have glowing eyes? I really hope this doesn’t get a sequel so they can explain it
I hate to defend Snyder, but this isn’t as WTF as it seems. Zombies in this movie are literal aliens escaped from a crate from Area 51, not the normal supernatural undead kind. Which granted is kind of WTF in itself. But if you buy the concept of alien zombies, cyborg alien zombies isn’t much of a stretch.
It wasn’t an alien it was wearing dog tags
Wait, was that part of the movie? How do you make Area 51 monsters take over Vegas and make it boring bullshit!?
fuck NO. how the fuck do you make the jump from alien zombies to cyborg zombies? Cyborg is an engineered organic/biomechatronic creation … which seemingly requires manufacturing, right? Didn’t see a fuckton of building or a production line in that bloody pool suite so not thinking they’re cyborgs. But how do you get a human’s body to continue with motor functions, some cerebral functions, and definitely full senses while also mortally wounded and seemingly starving for sustenance? I don’t fucking know and neither do the writers or the director.
The ones with glowing eyes are robot spies put there by the government or maybe aliens.
maybe they got the Covid vaccine and volunteered to be spies.
there with you. I’ll ask but seriously, I don’t give a skinny shit about the answer. Not worth the time it would take to read.
The montage was def a bit of a head scratcher. Like, that’s gotta be the most interesting part he montaged over! But no, let’s do a zombie heist movie!
the zeds , when Vegas started turning, were not by any means slow walkers, so there is no way they didn’t get out of the zone. So how were they all contained that quickly in downtown LV? Dunno and any answer won’t make a skinny shit of sense so I don’t really care. Oh well, I just spend 14 months wasting time shut-in and locked down so just add this 90 mins to my wasted life.
My favourite bit was how the door on the Super-Secret Zombie Crate at the beginning of the film doesn’t have any actual locking mechanism on it. Just a wheel on the front attached to nothing.
why were they transporting the alien zed anyway? why would you be taking it from Area 51 rather than to Area 51? Ya know, every movie where they gotta move a super baddy winds up a big fuck up … so why not NOT move the baddies? Just sayin’
yeah, this was the worst Zombie-anything i’ve seen in years, and Zombie Media is not kown for tight plots and coherent coherence. “An hour too long” is about right, but less one hour would mean less one hour of connective tissue.
They weren’t even proper zombies. They were more like the “infected” from the I Am Legend remake with Will Smith. I mean, they even had the sleeping zombies, the zombie animals (wolves vs tiger) a leader with a mate, an army of servile “lesser” zombies, military tactics…And there was also a lot borrowed from 28 Days Later.But, goddamn…what a freakin’ mess. Plot holes large enough to drive a semi through, characters we did not care about, stupid people making stupid decisions, and why the hell should we have cared about who survived at the end? We never got to know anybody!
the tiger was stolen from that horrible 2011 made-for-TV Zombie thing starring Ving Rhames, no less. Whose name i shan’t IMDb.
90 mins is too short for most films. That’s what studios cut them down to to sell them while ruining the story. No. There are no cyborg zombies in the film, you mustn’t have been paying attention when they explained that part. Maybe it should have been longer than 2 hours and 30 so you can pay attention 😂
Thank god, i was wondering why people here consider this thing “good”.The characters were stock one-dimensional stereotypes.The characters is straight bad B-movie stereotype, Cinematography of very low budget straight to dvd/stream film, and overall a waste of what possibly a good idea.
yeah I was really bored in it too. The first scene with the armour truck was fun and silly, but then they did away with that and got a little self serious.
It was an hour too long.You could be describing ANY Snyder movie.
This is true although ‘Watchmen’ never felt like it overstayed its welcome. It was paced pretty well and considering the material it had to cover, I don’t think they could’ve trimmed it any more than what we got with the theatrical version.
Seems to fit in well with Snyder’s Randian view of the world then.
It had been so long since I’d seen a zombie movie that it took about thirty minutes of “Army of the Dead” to remind me that I don’t like zombie movies. Nothing against the people who do enjoy them, but pitiless nihilism is just kind of a downer. Not my thing.
I don’t usually do zombie movies but the concept of a heist in Vegas combined with zombies sounded fun and I like fun. It was not fun. I ended up turned it off because I was bored and miserable.
“Army of the Dead” is the zombie movie you expect bad zombie movies to be. You can incorporate some other themes, but Army had none.Like, not even a greed-is-bad or gotta-gamble-sometimes theme in a movie set in Vegas. It was a pointless shoot em up action movie. You could replace zombies with any stock movie killable enemy and you’d get the same movie. This vault is guarded by droids!
My TL;DR: Review On Netflix, there are two movies currently available for streaming: Army of the Dead and Zombieland. There are no good arguments why you should watch the former over the latter.
Eh… It’s new?
Even if you’ve watched Zombieland a hundred times, and you’ve memorized the dialogue, it’s still a better and probably more entertaining movie (YMMV of course) than watching Army of the Dead the first time.
Well, you’re not going to know that until you watch it. Also, that’s an unfair comparison, because Zombieland is better than many, many movies, not just other zombie movies. Not everything can be Zombieland. It’s a high bar.
I mean, I enjoyed it. It was fine, fun, too long. And ZSJL was… well, I don’t know if it was necessarily GOOD, but it’s startlingly better than expected and fascinating. But good God can we just stop talking about Zack Snyder? I swear it’s a new article on him DAILY on this site. Like… k.
I watched it. It was fine. But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone ever.
The Mexico City ending is just an excuse for a future movie to have a border wall, isn’t it?
Zach Snyder’s Border Patrol of the Dead
12 year old me would’ve loved this. Now me will still watch anything zombie for completionism but this was just… fine. Competent. Not convinced Bautista has the charisma to carry a film, but it may have been the direction
Have you seen Bautista in My Spy, by chance? (I only ask because yes, the kid carries that movie) Dave is good as a supporting player
Strong take, but I’m not sure his movies are meant for spectators with a soul.
As is Zack Snyder.
? The point of the film is that almost all the characters have souls, the alpha zombies included. Day one stuff. These amateur bloggers, man 😂
Yeah you just pulled that out of your ass. Nowhere in the movie was that even hinted at.
Well, I think this movie is bad….but the movie DID try to say that at least the Alpha Zombies had “souls” (whatever that might mean to you.) The Alpha male loved and was protective of his mate, and mourned the loss of the (exceedingly stupid) zombie baby. The zombies were judicious in who they harmed, and set up a (ridiculous) code that they adhered to. This makes the zombies, like, not zombies. But it did at least hint at them having some sort of moral code and therefore a (hack, cough, gag) “soul”
No character development, no twists, no camera focus.Movie was just a simple shoot em up, which is not really what you want from a heist movie. I can’t even remember any interesting set pieces except for the vault trap thing.The chainsaw guy didn’t even use his chain saw and every character talked about Dillahaunt betraying everyone literally the scene before he started betraying everyone.Meh. Someone write his scripts and hold his cameras for him.
Well, if they didn’t start talking about, you would wonder why, because the viewer knows the minute he joins that he’s just there to betray the team.
It makes sense from a viewer standpoint to comment on him being there, but not sense from a movie script standpoint. You want betrayals to be unexpected, otherwise there’s no surprise.You can’t mention in scene 1 that someone is gonna betray you, then expect the audience to care when he betrays your protagonists for the 5th time in the movie. It just reeks of a screen writer (Snyder) thinking he’s clever, which, yikes.In the same vein, you’d want the movie to subvert it in some way (Dillahaunt is the good guy! or they murder him immediately! sorta like what they did with that guy from Luke Cage?) because they start telegraphing it immediately. But, nope, the payoff is 5 minute death scene by zombie tiger that, again, is telegraphed in second 1, immediately after the tiger shows up. Because what audiences like are action scenes involving characters he don’t really like whose conclusion we already know before we even see anything happen.The movie was just a lot of that. Like, why make zombies super fast and strong, when they also just die to a constant stream of headshots? Meh. Meh meh meh. Can’t believe a reviewer could give this anything above a meh.
From a viewer standpoint, I felt like if the characters did not realize he was there to betray them, it would make them look like complete idiots (and they were already skating very close to that line). I found the movie very predictable, but not in a way that annoyed me too terribly. Comfortably predictable? It was not a challenging movie in any way.Admittedly, if my expectations (and the other character’s expectations) about Dillahaunt had been subverted, it would have been a more interesting movie.
They had that scene right before he betrayed that lady who was the friend of that guy. Someone was like “if we’re gonna let someone die, we should let Garret Dillahaunt die, because why is he here, and he seems like he’s going to betray us.” Then everyone looked at him, and he was like, “why are you looking at me?”So I think the characters knew. Plus that French lady was like, o u just went off to do your own thing and capture a zombie head that will definitely get us all killed but for some reason I’m not going to tell the rest of our party that this is not what we signed up for and this seems dangerous and I’m literally going to tell you that this is a bad idea but not inform the rest of the party for whom our survival is dependent on.Then the lady says I don’t trust you and we have to talk about this later, because what you want to do is make drama during a mission with zombies all around you, and he immediately gets her killed, despite her being able to kill maybe 100000 zombies on her own, but when she’s out there with like 3 zombies around her, no one bothers helping her, and Dillahaunt says something like “LEAVE HER SHE’s DEAD ALREADY”
And I just spent 300 words on two scenes with more thought than Snyder put into either scene. Welp.Not to mention that Dillahaunt doesn’t have a single reason to betray anyone at all. He could’ve gotten that zombie head on a side mission and the more people that are alive means a better chance of survival, and they’re literally being paid in the money they’re stealing and he’s being paid for the zombie head so there’s absolutely no clash of interests. If the money they’re stealing pales in comparison to zombie head, why lock them? At worst they’re meat shields, but they’re already proven zombie killers! Let them save you!Anyways.I’m writing way more than this movie deserves. It was dumb. Passably dumb. Just like a guy took a fun premise and $100 million to make, iunno, zombie equivalnet of Olympus Has Fallen? Which I haven’t seen but I imagine it was dumb action too.
Like for “I’m writing more than the movie deserves.”
I’m pretty sure the guide with the bleach blonde hair admitted she had made a deal with him to help him get the head.
I’m standing and clapping at my desk right now. My boss is wondering why…Couldn’t have ranted (no jab, I love a good rant) better myself!
I had a good time with this movie but the way they dealt with Dillahunt’s character is an example of why a lot of it didn’t really work.I don’t think a twist like “Dillahunt’s there with his own agenda and will screw over the main characters” necessarily has to surprise the audience to be effective. It just has to surprise the main characters and have some meaning for them beyond, “this is another obstacle the screenplay has placed in our paths.” So, e.g., Dillahunt’s character could have been one of the core group of Vegas veterans, who’s landed on his feet by taking a high-paying job as the casino mogul’s security chief. So when he betrays them on his boss’ orders it’s a genuine betrayal, not just “Thief A has a different agenda than Thieves B thru H.”Or at least give him a backstory and a personality that fleshes him out beyond, “scowling thug who works for a greedy businessman.” As written and acted, the real surprise with that character would’ve been if he’d turned out to be a selfless good guy. And, considering that almost everyone on this mission is some variety of mercenary or criminal, it wouldn’t have been too hard to make one of them a red herring—the likely traitor who turns out to be reliable, while Dillahunt turns out to be the bad guy.None of that would’ve made the “twist” all that shocking. But the way they had all of the characters discussing Dillahunt’s impending treachery was odd. It’s like they were embarrassed to be including a straightforward action movie trope in a straightforward action movie, but not embarrassed enough to try to do something more entertaining with it.
“No character development, no twists, no camera focus.”Thank god some people have the same idea, the shitty stereotype, non-existent character development other than “being cool”, and ultimately who the f*ck do the cinematography and wield the damn camera? Its so painful to watch.
Why this site praise this shitty movie?
“This many aspect of this movie is bad, that’s why is a good snyder movie”What the F!?
It just made me wish I rewatched Planet Terror instead.
I thought the CGI cigar smoke from Tig looked stupid either find an actor willing to smoke for real or don’t bother
Zack Snyder desperately needs a partner. He can do set pieces but literally nothing else. He needs someone to string those pieces together and fill the quiet moments.First, this movie was so long, and Bautista’s final scene lasted forever.Then, so many plot holes. Why were other teams sent in unaccompanied? Why go for the vault if it never mattered? Why does the government need the head to create zombies when they created the original? Why run off to save a woman you barely knew, who you’ve got no reason to believe is alive, with a nuke coming in 15 minutes?Was Bautista even in this? Can anyone remember a thing he said? Or anyone, really? The character ripping off Vazquez is the only one I remember. And the safe guy. Also, why didn’t the owner know how to open the safe? Or disarm the Indiana Jones traps?The daughter added nothing to the film. Nothing. No drama. Just… bad filler and worse decisionsAnd even when the set pieces were good, the cgi tiger was holding the Deadwood guy by the ankle, but the harness lifting the actor was clearly around his armpits so just head was lifting even with the ankle, which defied physics in a bad way.Like so many Snyder films, this felt like there was a good, fun movie here if someone less stupid made it. All his decisions are terrible. Still his best movie
He needs to be bumped down to 2nd Unit Director. That’s the guy that does the set pieces.
Why were other teams sent in unaccompanied? Why go for the vault if it never mattered?
Snyder has since made reference to plot points that he intentionally left ambiguous – robot zombies(!?), time loops, even the Shamblers reviving when it rains is bizarrely mentioned with no pay off. It’s the same self-satisfying “I’m not going to explain this except maybe in a sequel” that helped sink Batman v Superman. Maybe just focus on the film at hand (and I actually liked Snyder’s JL, minus some of the gratuitous scenes setting up future films that will never happen).
Not everything in every movie needs to be explained, I’m all for subtle mysteries, but Zack Snyder films are never, ever subtle. People have spent years discussing if Deckard is a replicant or if the top turns over in Inception. But those are intentionally subtle mysteries that are earned after hours of storytelling and world building. You can’t just interrupt a Batman movie with the Flash time-traveling from another movie without any explanation. We can all take a good guess at what is happening in the future movie, but it doesn’t fit the movie we/he should be focusing on by dropping a character that hasn’t even been introduced yet.
I get the feeling Snyder thinks he being clever and wants social media to keep talking about him (or pop culture site to keep posted click-bait articles featuring him) with these giant bread crumbs he drops, but unexplained robot zombies aren’t really clever, it’s just a big “WTF?”
Ah so he’s trying the J.J. Abrams approach to film making.
All of the CGI was SyFy channel levels of terrible.
It’s like what happened with Lucas and the SW prequels. There was no one to say “No George! Bad George!!” and we got what we got.
I don’t know what’s worse, that these things about this movie are true or that an AV Club editor tried to defend them. This article stinks of promotional consideration.
Zack Snyder wasn’t “beholden” to a comic book universe. The DC universe was beholden to Zack’s dour interpretation of those characters.
Ah, so he really is a perfect choice for that Fountainhead adaptation.
Except it’s a terrible movie and Snyder can now add “bad cinematographer” alongside bad director and bad writer.
AV Club is really doubling down on this forgettable mediocrity, and it’s just not the hill I would have figured they’d be willing to die on.
I mean, to prove its point, this article gives two main examples- both of which are about no-name characters exploding upon sacrifice. And even as I type that, it sounds like the kind of dumb that could be fun; But as presented onscreen, it was just dull. Unusual, compared to how Zack Snyder usually does things. I mean, in his Justice League cut, he gives full slow-motion grandeur to a falling sesame seed. Nothing like that here. If anything, Army of the Dead wasn’t “Snyder” enough. Just a basic, uninspired zombie action flick more akin to Paul Anderson’s Resident Evil fare:
So I’m more than a little insulted by this being in the same conversation with greatness like The Raid or John Wick. What those movies lack in character personality, they make up for by being excellent at other things. The Raid, it’s tension, and sense of location/ John Wick, it’s intriguing assassin underworld. And both of these films are masterclasses in martial arts/action that place them atop their genres. Will Army of the Dead be considered one of the best zombie movies around? I think it wastes too much of its ideas, setting, and cast, for that to be the case.
(Note: the best argument here is the Predator comparison, which I can almost see; But that film’s shallowness can be excused as being a product of the 80s, leeway I’m not willing to give Zack in 2021, if he’s not directly paying homage (he’s not). And at least that movie has Schwarzenegger’s leading man charisma that Dave Bautista comes nowhere close to. He’s an also-ran on his own team.)
No, Zack Snyder is at his best when he’s making music videos. Or when his movies stop to be music videos. That’s basically why his opening credits or his movie trailers are so good.
“AV Club is really doubling down on this forgettable mediocrity, and it’s just not the hill I would have figured they’d be willing to die on.”
It’s because Gizmodo’s discovered this comment section’s favorite thing is debating Snyder’s merits and bonding over mutual dislike, and they also do numbers on social. There’s been prolly a dozen Snyder articles in the last week or so, and its the same song and dance each time, to the tune of bonkers engagement even if the story is a nothingburger. Pretty clear they’re riding out his pair of films as two of the biggest pandemic event movies until other tentpoles start rolling out. If we’re really all tired of hearing about him/it, we gotta just not click and comment. But that’d take some restraint on our part to not be so eager to one-up/back-pat each other with pithy insults and/or impassioned defenses, and tbh, I think most ppl are just to have some fun talking shit (which isn’t a judgment also, for the record, bc I’m here too lol). So like, I’d count on at least a couple more pieces next week.
I enjoyed it. Not as much as his Dawn of the Dead, but enough that I did not consider my Friday evening sitting at home on my own damn couch having spent no extra money wasted. The daughter was pretty annoying.
I suppose the most damning thing I can say about it is it’s not a movie that merits all that much discussion, either positive or negative.
I’ve finally worked out the time loop thing you guys!Are you ready?Sure?Here goes!It’s a hacky piece of shit bit of cynical screenwriting designed to generate clickbait internet bullshit purely for marketing that has no actual bearing on the plot of the movie.
All this coverage of Army of the Dead makes me wish for a Dead Rising 2 movie (I never played the first one). No Zombie rapists (a story said the movie originally had zombie rapists), no Sean Spicer, just a motorcross racer smashing through zombies to get meds for his daughter so she doesn’t turn.
This movie was so bad that comparing it to Aliens is a travesty.
Hey no need to rag on Predator. It was precisely their ability to see that their testosterone was useless in their dying moments that gave the Predator actors (and having good writers and McTiernan) layers and why no ensuing Predator film has been too great.
The article nails Snyder’ biggest problem: he doesn’t understand or care about character.The final obstacle in Army of the Dead is when Kate goes looking for Geeta and her friends. But Snyder never specifically shows us what Geeta’s fate is after the helicopter crash. It’s not like he didn’t have the time to cut to her at the end of a 145 minute movie, but to him it isn’t important even though the entire finale revolved around her safety.
It reminds me of Dr Emil Hamilton in Man of Steel – super nice scientist guy who agrees to help but gets unceremoniously sucked into a black hole with the rest of the militant Kryptonians after basically saving the day, and it’s never acknowledged. He, along with the rest of Metropolis, aren’t really important. Also, all of Watchmen, in which he faithfully recreates comic book imagery, without really understand the characters themselves. It’s frustrating because there’s a lot of great things happening in Zack Snyder movies, there’s just a gulf between his interest in the imagery and the human element, which isn’t surprising considering his Ayn Rand fandom.
Agree with the title of the article.He’s also at his best when the plot doesn’t have to make a lick o’ sense.The minute you start to actually think about one of his movies, he loses.