Writer/director Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead (now streaming on Netflix and playing in those few theaters still operating) is a companion piece to his 2003 Dawn of the Dead remake. Its release comes at a lingering, pandemic period when freedoms continue to be restricted (with all the debatable pros and cons attached to all the vague hows and whys); only here we're not dealing with a reality-variant Andromeda Strain, but rather an exploit of fast-moving, flesh-eating (and often organized) living dead in a heist context.
The set-up is simple, where an Area 51, military caravan gets into a crash outside Las Vegas. A zombie is unleashed from a trailer the soldiers are carting, and once they're bitten and transformed, the group heads to Sin City to wreck havoc. (The opening-credit sequence does a swell, sardonic job of condensing the raging takeover.)
To instill star value, Dave Bautista plays Scott Ward, a former mercenary who now flips burgers in Vegas for a buck, even as a countdown begins in Washington to nuke his realm on July 4th: a controversial plan that some insist won't purge the infestation.
As fate would have it, Ward is approached by casino honcho Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) who enlists the big man to lead a team to crack a safe to attain millions in cash before the big blow-up.
Along the line, others get involved due to one cause or another (Ella Purnell; Omari Hardwick; Huma Qureshi; Theo Rossi; Tig Notaro; Ana de la Reguera; Garret Dillahunt; Nora Arnezeder; Lyon Beckwith; and scene-stealing Mathias Schweighofer), establishing a Romero-esque ensemble of harsh but identifiable characters who are set to risk it all for a share of the moolah.
Some humor cuts in, though Army of the Dead is a far cry from Zombieland or Return of the Living Dead, even if it does use more levity (in a Guy Ritchie sorta way) than let's say the Walking Dead or for that matter, Snyder's Dawn retelling. There are also moments of kill-a-loved-one poignancy to pad the variance, though that doesn't make the movie Maggie, either. (To boot, cool, reinterpreted tunes haunt the atmosphere: a lovely touch.)
The balance is pretty successful, with the intermittent, contrasting spurts bouncing off copious, CGI carnage and general weirdness. My favorite interlude comes early, when these hot, undead showgirls attack a guy in his hotel room. (The gals are topless. That's an aesthetic plus.) And oh, the zombie tiger is amazing, as is the zombie king (Rich Cetris) and his sexy zombie queen (Athena Perample). Yeah, infect me, baby!
Even with its unique attributes, Army of the Dead is nothing novel. Some folks may dismiss it as just another link in an ongoing flesh-eating-flick chain. Maybe they're right to do so, but I found the film a dandy diversion, even when it referenced those too-close-to-home temperature checks. In other words, the movie is good, gruesome fun, even if it does have one foot planted in restrictive reality.
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