Army of the Dead review: A snark-filled heist with a zombie twist

Hot off of the buzz surrounding his highly anticipated director’s cut of Justice League, Zack Snyder has already returned to streaming with his latest Netflix release – Army of the Dead. Starring Dave Bautista and a small legion of ensemble cast members, Army of the Dead is a snark-filled take on the heist flick that benefits from a strong premise, often witty dialogue, and a strong sense of identity courtesy of Snyder’s direction. While it may be a little overstuffed in terms of cast members and just a tad too long for its relatively bare-bones premise, there’s still enough enjoyment to be had in Army of the Dead for any action-seeker, Snyder fan or not.

Army of the Dead follows Scott Ward (Bautista), a single father who earned military accolades defending the United States from a zombie outbreak. Now, several years later, Scott is working as a fry cook in a run-down restaurant outside of Las Vegas, which has been transformed into a no man’s land where the last remaining infected zombies reside. Outside the walled-off city is a camp full of refugees where Scott’s estranged daughter Kate (Ella Purnell) works, alongside a skeevy security guard (Theo Rossi).

When a mysterious benefactor named Bly (Hiroyuki Sanada) approaches Scott about stealing 50 million dollars from the vaults beneath the now-overrun Las Vegas casinos, Scott jumps at the chance to turn his life around and assembles a team of mercenaries from his zombie-killing days, including second in command/old flame Cruz (Ana de la Reguera), one-man-army Vanderhoe (Omari Hardwick), dry-humored helicopter pilot Peters (Tig Notaro), and safe-cracker Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer). Together, the ragtag band of fighters braves the zombie-infested Vegas to get the cash and get out before the military drops a nuke on the city.

What’s clever on the film’s end is that instead of wasting time having all of its characters adjust to a life where zombies overrun society, a significant junk of the exposition comes in the film’s opening credits sequence, which gives the backstory for all of the major players. It’s a smart way to shave what could easily have been another half an hour of runtime, and a refreshing subversion of the zombie genre where the outbreak, for the most part, has been dealt with, with the exception of one zombie-infested city.

This also allows for pre-established relationships between the crew of mercenaries once Ward has assembled his team – though the team itself could probably stand to lose two or three members and the film wouldn’t suffer for it. While some figures clearly need to be there for either narrative or tonal purposes (as Peters remarks, Dieter, in particular, is the most important member speaking practically) there are tertiary characters like Chambers (Samantha Win) and Guzman (Raúl Castillo) who bring virtually nothing to the table and could be cut without consequence.

Also feeling frustratingly like an afterthought is Scott’s daughter Kate, who tags along on the heist mission in an attempt to find Geeta, a refugee from the camp who is missing and presumed dead behind the walls of the Las Vegas quarantine zone. Though on paper Kate is a necessary element to help ground the film and add personal stakes to the success of the mission for Scott, she comes off as whiny and annoying more than anything else; likely a mix of the writing and some unfortunate acting choices from Purnell.

Serving in a similar capacity but in a much more effective way are Cruz and Vanderhoe, who bring a ‘brothers in arms’ sort of energy in their relationship with Scott. Peters falls into this category as well – you get the impression that these are people who bonded in wartime and are still reeling from the horrors they saw. While Peters is sidelined, (possibly due to the behind-the-scenes hoops that Snyder and Co. had to jump through after recasting the part and CGI-ing Notaro into the film) Cruz is often paired up with Scott, hinting at the romantic relationship they could’ve had, should their lives have taken different paths.

The last (and most unlikely yet effective) duo of the bunch is battle-hardened Vanderhoe and the bright-eyed, heavily-accented Dieter, who play wonderfully off of each other in a good cop/bad cop sort of way. Though Vanderhoe’s characterization does get slightly murky from scene to scene, Matthias Schweighöfer brings an infectious, wonderfully charming energy to Dieter that sparks some genuine charisma and chemistry with Vanderhoe when they’re paired off together. Though we found ourselves hot and cold on the way the film picks off its characters (some deaths worked much better than others), it was (spoiler alert) Dieter’s demise who stuck with us the most. Even though a character that good-hearted is almost certainly marked for deaths in films of this genre, you still can’t help but wish he made it out alive – and Snyder and Schweighöfer hit the nail on the head.

The film itself is, as with most of Snyder’s films, on the lengthier side – but this case feels particularly egregious because of the relative simplicity of the premise. A heist film doesn’t need to be two and a half hours long, especially a film like this, where the details of the heist itself are glossed over and thrown to the wayside in favor of zombie worldbuilding and gory action set pieces. In terms of action, there’s certainly plenty of it – and a number of gruesome kills, courtesy of near-superhuman zombies that would give the baddies in 28 Days Later a run for their money. The whole ‘sentient zombie community’ idea is a little half-baked and doesn’t feel entirely necessary, but it could’ve been an interesting concept if the film budgeted its time a little better.

The film’s last act does fall off the rails a little bit – particularly in the final moments, where instead of ending the film on a satisfying yet somber note with Kate, Snyder pushes forward to a more ‘gotcha’ final zinger with Vanderhoe. It’s difficult to think of another example where the final moments of a film so obviously should’ve been a post-credits scene – ending on Vanderhoe robs the film of all its emotional poignancy that was built up between Scott and Kate just moments prior.

Though Army of the Dead sometimes trips over its own feet attempting to do too many things at once, there are still enough Snyder-isms (read: zingy dialogue and brutal kills) to make it worth the two-and-a-half-hour runtime. While the film could’ve found better footing with a smaller ensemble and a more significant emphasis on the heist itself, Army of the Dead is a satisfyingly high-octane flick that puts a clever spin on a tried-and-true genre.

Are you planning to give Army of the Dead a look? Sound off in the comments.