Army of the Dead
Zack Snyder directing a Netflix original, which turns out to be a fairly straight forward Zombie movie. It definitely is a departure from the pop-mythological epics that were his last few superhero movies, less elegant and bombastic, more self aware and gritty. Also shorter, though, mind you, "shorter" for Zack Snyder means still well over 2 hours. It definitely shows Snyder at his most Paul Verhoeven, though the movie never quite commits to the bit quite as much as Starship Troopers or even a younger Snyder's 300 did.
It's a simple enough premise. A zombie virus broke out after a a military transport in Nevada got into an accident. The outbreak seems to be mostly localized in Las Vegas, which has been quarantined and is planned to be nuked on Independence Day. A shady businessman employs an ensemble cast of action heroes to secure a safe from there, days before it would be razed to the ground. What starts of a a fairly straight forward heist movie with a zombie gimmick... well, basically stays that way until the end, but it's still a Snyder movie so there's a generous helping of subtext there, most of it not very subtle. It feels very much in the vain of cheesy satirical action movies from the 80s, think Robocop or Escape from New York. It is implied that the quarantine zone outside of Vegas is used to detain civil rights activists and progressives, in a way that blatantly invokes the demonization of anti fascists and Anti-Police-Violence protestes under the Trump administration. Human rights violations in the quarantine zone parallels the treatment of refugees from South America and the Middle East and, what is probably its most central plotpoint, the a subgroup of the Zombies aren't mindless monsters, they've set up something like their own civilization in the ruins of Las Vegas. Snyder's movies are always a product of his personal morals and even Army of the Dead, which, by all means, feels like a light hearted palette cleanser between more major projects, has them front and center. Which is good, because they're definitely the most appreciable thing about it. It's a comparatively lower budget affair than something like Justice League or Watchmen so while it does have its share of well realized action sequences and well staged shots, it's mostly missing the visual grandeur of Snyder's bigger movies. The ensemble cast does a fine job bringing personality to what are, in essence, stock heist movie archetypes. Especially David Bautista's "Gentle Giant" energy goes a long way in making the viewer root for him. There's some good gore. I liked the part where they fed the sexist border control guy to Zombies. That was fun.
In the end it's a fun, campy action movie that will most likely end up a footnote in Snyder's career. It's held up by an earnest feeling punk rock attitude from one of the few remaining mainstream action directors who's not afraid to address what's wrong with society. After his Magnum Opus Justice League it does feel a bit underwhelming, and I do hope he will turn towards more amibtious projects now that it's done, but I had an alright time with it.
