Army of the Dead (2021)

 While writing this for my Letterboxd account, I realized this was going way over the limit I intended for the minor review there.

I didn't think that was nearly as wretched as I had heard. Is the plotting a mess? I wouldn't dispute anyone's critique on some odd decisions made or the soap opera moments with music giving them cringe (Batista and his daughter, talking about tofu and how he wasn't there for her, Batista and de la Raguera stopping for a chat about why she came along on this mission.."not because of money, because of you, you idiot."). And the damned running time is way, way too long. This is just too bloated for a Vegas zombie heist film. So I get that the film has its problems.

But I'm going to be honest: some of this is fun. Like everything with Chambers is awesome. How Dillahunt screws her over because she suspects him of being suspicious (and rightfully so) and Samantha Win's Chambers still combats a good many of a horde of "hibernating" zombies within a building near the multi-tier casino/resort valiantly is badass. I did really enjoy Schweighöfer as the quirky safecracker and his repartee with Hardwicke's muscled, buzzsaw-carrying zombie-ass-kicker. Though Hardwicke gets annoyed with him for being such a lightweight, Schweighöfer is too irresistibly kooky not to like. Oh, and Arnezeder as a coyote who can get humans in and out of zombie apocalyptic Vegas and understands the navigational process of the undead in the wasteland city is cast as quite a street-wise, smart, and quick-thinking guide.

Dillahunt reeks of untrustworthiness, though. I kept asking myself why Batista's group could trust this guy for five minutes. If anything, you'd think they would keep their eyes on him the entire time. When Arnezeder carries Dillahunt to "get blood from" the Queen zombie and takes off her head so the government could use the zombie bite as a weapon against enemies, even Arnezeder should have known he would stab her in the back at any moment.

I struggled with the main arc of the film, too. I get these characters assembled are on the strugglebus but risking their lives in a desert city of the undead just seems quite an outrageous concept to consider. Serious cajones to agree to such an operation. To make it possible, the film includes an Alpha named Zeus (Cetrone) and his Queen (Perample), willing to let Arnezeder guide some humans to the resort in exchange for a human sacrifice to be turned into zombie. So Arnezeder convinces misogynist/rapist/abuser with a temperature gauge at a quarantine zone (Rossi) to join them, with him not realizing she plans to use him as the sacrifice in exchange for access in the city without Zeus and the Queen's interference. This is the specific part of the film I found rather preposterous. Since Zeus is the Patient Zero accidentally released from a storage cube when fellatio in a car (!!!) causes a head-on with a truck carrying the zombie, he's the Alpha with a bite that is special. He can command an army that follows and listens to him. Dillahunt snatching the head of the Alpha's Queen just encourages a whole lot of trouble.

So the heist is a cover for Dillahunt's boss (Sanada) to get the zombie head and have a horde that follows the government's command. Perfect soldiers they can use to gain leverage against other countries/governments that oppose it. And ultimately, all the effort is an absolute waste.

Not just Dillahunt is a pain in Batista's ass, but his daughter (Purnell) also decides to go off on her own to find the mother of two kids she often helps look after (who went into the city to get some cash to help her). So Batista has to go find her while Dillahunt screws over the crew. So throughout Snyder's film, a film Netflix gave him carte blanche on, the plotting is built off of Sanada wanting a zombie head. And the zombie virus in Vegas was caused essentially by the wife of newlyweds giving head to her hubby while he's driving! All that said, Snyder does include a zombie tiger...and the tiger gets to maul. So with all the plotting peculiarities, I can't just tell a fib and say it was a total waste. The opening credits as the zombie virus spreads throughout the city is grand, bloody, visceral, visually exciting, and epic...this is a whole movie condensed into a few minutes that would seem to be far more thrilling than a lot of the Zeus/Queen zombie developments and Batista family/relationship drama. I said to myself: I wanted more of *that*. 

Notaro as the helicopter pilot cast to replace D'Elia (a MeToo "cancellation") is a Snyder CGI casualty. The way the camera looks when she's in scenes with the cast, how Snyder tries to blend her in with them but there is this visible difference between her and the cast, I commend the effort in trying to get it right...it is still quite noticeable. Keeping her out of scene is often very important. When Hollywood wants to excommunicate somebody, they will go to great lengths to do so...Snyder admitted it cost a few millions to hire and CGI Notaro into the film during key scenes.