'Army of the Dead' film review: Zombie-heist caper thrills after a long, slow start
The Zack Snyder zombie heist flick 'Army of the Dead' (now playing in select theaters and streaming on Netflix starting May 21) makes good on the promise of faster, smarter zombies and an undead tiger - but at the cost of making the audience sit through a movie that's an hour too long.
In short: After zombies overtake Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries led by Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) are hired to break into a casino vault to pull off a daring heist - and they must pull off the job before the military drops a nuke on the Vegas strip. Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighöfer, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada and Tig Notaro also star.
Clocking in at almost two and a half hours, this flick's lumbering and odd pacing is this movie’s worst enemy. For a film that is little more than a zombie heist, there’s simply no justification for its needlessly long runtime. Almost 45 minutes passes before Scott finally assembles his motley crew just outside Vegas - leaving another 1 hour and 45 minutes left in the movie. Some great sci-fi and horror films - like ‘Dredd,’ ‘Prospect’ and ‘Upgrade’ - were able to compact their entire story, from start to finish, in less than 105 minutes. The basic concept of a casino heist set against the zombiepocalypse plays a lot better in a trailer than it does as a full-length feature movie with a lot of fat to trim.
The real question is: does 'Army of the Dead' deliver as a fun heist-zombie hybrid flick? Ultimately yes, but it does mean getting through the first 90 minutes. While not boring by any measure, this film's front end is incredibly bloated. The final hour - a nearly non-stop zombie chase sequence - actually lives up to this flick's potential. Oh and that zombie tiger in the trailer doesn't get a lot of screen time - but 'Army' deserves bonus points just for the sheer terrifying audacity of coming up with a zombified tiger. Let's just say the tiger makes the most of limited screen time.
The movie's pacing issue isn't just bloated scenes that could be edited out - 'Army' simply does not move with any sense of urgency. Even as Scott's team is completely surrounded by zombies and they're racing against thermonuclear detonation - the various team members seem way too nonchalant in virtually any given scene. As the thieves attempt to start up a power generator, they actually stop some very important, heist-critical work ... to talk about the past. At another point, characters just stop mid-heist to ponder what menu would work best for a food truck. The accumulation of all these drawn out moments just weighs 'Army' down, sapping any potential narrative momentum the movie tries to build up.
'Well, at least the first 90 minutes of setup pays off in the character relationship department, right?' Sadly, that's not entirely the case. One character - who does little more than kill waves of zombies alongside their fellow criminals - finally has a meaningful character-to-character moment ... moments before their violent death. Writer-director Snyder's script is far from economical, wasting most of the movie's first half and rushing other character moments, especially in the second act.
In perhaps the flick's most frustrating move, Scott's estranged daughter Kate has a b-plot that's just irritating - to the characters and for the story. From a narrative perspective, Kate only exists to throw in a wholly unnecessary plot distraction. She's helpful ... until she isn't anymore - then she only serves to muddle up the story in a big way.
Final verdict: If the first 90 minutes had somehow been trimmed to a lean 45 minutes, then 'Army of the Dead' could have been an energized and fun non-stop actioner under two hours. As it is, 'Army' is excessive and not in the way a violent zombie flick ought to be. Even its great final hour can’t offset its plotting first 90 minutes.
Score: 2.5/5
'Army of the Dead' is now playing in select theaters and streams on Netflix starting May 21. This zombie heist is rated R for strong bloody violence, gore and language throughout, some sexual content and brief nudity/graphic nudity and has a running time of 148 minutes.
