SCREENCRUNCH: And that’s not a bad thing

Just with its first 15 minutes, which was made available on YouTube ahead of the film’s release, Zack Snyder’s “Army of the Dead” already got my attention. What follows after those adrenaline-pumping first few minutes confirmed my initial impression of the film: It’s a zombie movie that doesn’t pretend to be anything else.

*Some spoilers ahead*

Like all good stories, Snyder’s return to the zombie genre puts audiences right in the middle of the action. There’s hardly any backstory or drama-building that happens. There’s not a lot about the characters that you need to know, save from the fact that they will all be out at one point killing zombies. In short, it doesn’t spend unnecessary minutes drumming up reasons for you to connect to its characters—save for the father-daughter dynamic between Dave Bautista’s Scott Ward and Ella Purnell who plays Kate Ward.

After all, what you’re after is the zombie killing bits, right? Let’s not pretend otherwise.

And as far as zombie killing goes, “Army of the Dead” doesn’t disappoint. There’s enough blood and gore through the film that shows how much Snyder has not lost his “Dawn of the Dead” touch.

This doesn’t mean, however, that “Army of the Dead” doesn’t have interesting enough characters. It does. Scott Ward puts together a team composed of characters straight out of your last “Left for Dead” playthrough, combined with the “Ocean’s Eleven” kind of heist-ey feel. There’s tension enough between the members of this crew—hired by billionaire Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) to supposedly empty a vault in the middle of Zombiefied Las Vegas—to keep you wondering if they would actually make it out alive together or if they’re going to go betray each other. And Tig Notaro playing a mechanic/engineer—why does it feel like we’ve seen that somewhere before? That’s because we probably have.

Enough of the living. Let’s talk a bit about the (un)dead. Snyder’s concept of zombies that aren’t your usual, i.e. not the sluggish type that’s just out for brains (although there are those kinds in the film too), is quite refreshing. The king of this army of the dead is intriguing enough, although his origins are only hinted at in the film. He wears a metal mask too, to protect himself from people who want to shoot his brains out. Oh, and he also has a queen, which at one point, seemed like she was pregnant. Or maybe I just misunderstood that scene?

In any case, the zombies in Las Vegas present a challenge for Scott Ward and his heist team to keep your heart pumping throughout the film. Did I mention that there’s a zombie tiger too, supposedly one of Sigfried and Roy’s?

Overall, “Army of the Dead” gets the zombie action flick feels right. A lot of action, a lot of blood, a lot of brains, and definitely a lot of dead.

We give “Army of the Dead” a 4 out of 5.