Cast: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Tig Notaro and Huma Qureshi

Director: Zack Snyder

Zack Snyder, who made his feature debut with a successful reimagining of George A. Romero’s iconic Dawn of the Dead (1978) in 2004, returns to zombies to deliver a thrilling Zombie thriller Army of the Dead.

The film takes us into a world where the zombie apocalypse is already upon us, and the undead have been wreaking havoc in and around Las Vegas for a while. Now, in the present, they have been sequestered in Sin City and guarded-off with iron grills and shipping containers. There is a literal ticking time bomb, as Vegas will be flattened with a nuclear bomb to kill the remaining zombies and save humankind from the zombie apocalypse. 

This is where the ever-greedy humans enter, as there is a massive treasure to be salvaged from a locked safe in one of Sin City’s numerous casinos. A hurriedly put-together mercenary group materialises out of the woodwork, led by a Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) — who saved the Secretary of Defence from a zombie attack — and they have to just cross the undead territory, access the billions of dollars from the safe, and make headway from the rooftop in a helicopter, pronto. Simple, easy, no rocket science. 

Even at 148 minutes, there is never a dull moment in Army of the Dead with explosions, bursting heads, decapitations, gouts of blood and Valentine slinking around swishing its zombified tail or yawning and curling up on a beat-up car. One doesn’t have to bother too much with the acting in an action movie and everyone snarls out their lines competently. Special mention should be made of Tig Notaro’s chopper pilot, who is a charismatic hotshot.

And then there is the music. There was Led Zeppelin’s hypnotic ‘When the Levee Breaks’ in Snyder’s Sucker Punch and My Chemical Romance’s incendiary rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’ in Watchmen. Army of the Dead features lovely covers of CCR’s ‘Bad Moon Rising’ and The Doors’ ‘The End’ and an acoustic version of The Cranberries’ ‘Zombie’ (duh).

True, no one goes to watch a Snyder movie for subtext or subtlety. What we can expect from him is to own his silliness. What we can also hope for is a mind-numbing zombie shooting gallery, and he more than meets his quota on that. Only, the novelty of headshots wore off many Fallouts and Resident Evils ago. Gore hasn't provoked the same visceral excitement since Julia Ducournau's Raw. 

The idea of a heist in the middle of a zombie apocalypse sounds great during the planning stage of the movie. But Snyder doesn't take it very far, save for a scene where the squad must walk through a room full of hibernating shamblers, which evokes the same idea as moving through a laser grid hallway in heist movies. The other unforgivable crime Snyder commits is he gives us a zombie film that doesn't leave you remotely scared. What Army of the Dead proves is giving zombies personalities will not reanimate a dying genre.

Watch Army of the Dead for sheer entertainment, the VFX and the brilliant soundtrack that’s been culled from Snyder’s own master playlist.