ARMY OF THE DEAD (2021) ** ½

Zack Snyder returns to the zombie genre after a seventeen-year absence with the fitfully amusing (and just as fitfully uneven) Army of the Dead. 

A zombie virus runs rampant through Las Vegas.  The government walls in the city to contain the outbreak, but naturally, you just can’t have all that Vegas money sitting in the casinos like that.  So, Dave Bautista and his team of thieves sneak back into town to steal some loot and hopefully, avoid becoming zombie grub.   

The zombies are divided into two categories:  “Shamblers” and “Alphas”.  The Shamblers are just your garden variety gut munchers, however, it’s the Alphas you have to watch out for.  They are super-fast and super-strong and can communicate with the zombie leader, Zeus (Richard Cetrone).  Eventually, our heroes manage to piss Zeus off, and he declares open season on the living. 

The best moments in Army of the Dead find Snyder leaning into his tendencies of glorious excess.  The opening sequence features a great needle drop on a choice Richard Cheese song (shades of his Dawn of the Dead remake) as zombie showgirls and undead Elvis impersonators wreak havoc on The Strip.  Snyder also gleefully cribs from everything from An American Werewolf in London to Escape from New York to Apocalypse Now to Aliens.  Heck, even the heist set inside a walled-up zombie city was already done in Train to Busan Presents Peninsula.  (Also, Cetrone is basically playing a slight variation on his role as “Big Daddy Mars” in John Carpenter’s wrongly neglected Ghosts of Mars.)  These little nods to other (better) movies are fun, although they don’t add up to a whole lot in the end. 

I mean Snyder even rips his own self off, which is kind of funny.  Two of the main zombies are seen wearing capes and crowns that make them look like zombified versions of Superman and Wonder Woman.  There’s even a scene where one dons a helmet that makes him look like Gerard Butler in 300!  He also rips off the zombie baby idea from Dawn of the Dead.  

I’m sure Snyder had fun making a patchwork pastiche after so many self-important superhero movies.  Admittedly, parts of this really work.  However, at over two and a half hours, it’s just way too long for its own good.  This could’ve easily been pared down to under two hours, but as is the case with most Netflix Originals, the filmmakers are allowed a little bit too much leeway to do whatever the hell they want.  I think a director should have artistic freedom and all but judging from this and The Snyder Cut of Justice League, it’s apparent that Snyder just doesn’t know when to quit. 

Then again, any movie that features a zombie tiger is kind of critic-proof, if you ask me.  

Bautista is OK in the lead, but it’s Laura Arnezeder who gets the best line when she says, “Take another step and I’ll blow her head off.  Or… more of it off.”