The first
time I heard about the idea of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead being
remade in 2004 I was predisposed against it.
Why fix what isn’t broken or take away from what was accomplished in the
past? Then upon seeing the film I was
introduced to what is now regarded as the directorial debut of one of Hollywood’s
biggest and most divisive original filmmakers: Zack Snyder. In the years since, Snyder’s adaptation of 300
as well as his adaptation of Watchmen before going on to take on the
DCEU with Man of Steel and Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice saw
Snyder swinging hard in the big leagues brushing shoulders with the likes of
Christopher Nolan.
Then
tragedy struck when his daughter took her own life and he pulled out of the
third DCEU film Justice League before Joss Whedon took over, resulting
in one of the most divisive cinematic train wrecks the comic book superhero
film world has ever known. After the tumultuous
ordeal suffered by Snyder and his family, the prospect of completing his
original vision of Justice League seemed unlikely until it was more or
less willed into existence by popular demand and soon Snyder was back in the
director’s chair. Returning to Justice
League for Snyder however wasn’t so much a dose of long-awaited fan service
as it was a personal catharsis for the writer-director in losing a loved one
near and dear to him.
Right
around the same time, Snyder’s creative output kicked back into high gear and
right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit he shot what can be regarded as a return
to the world that cemented his place in Hollywood in the first place with the
$90 million Army of the Dead.
Airing in select theaters this week before going onto Netflix next
Friday, the film picks up years later with a new ensemble set of characters
living in a post-apocalyptic world where some semblance of normalcy has
returned in some areas while others remain in zombie outbreak ruin.
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| Courtesy of Netflix |
Starring
Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Tig Notaro and Hiroyuki Sanada, the
film concerns a group of mercenary soldiers who conspire a heist of a Las Vegas
casino. The trouble is the area has been
quarantined with a horde of newly evolved tribalistic zombies fashioning their
own army of the undead to battle humankind.
Think of it as a crossbreed between Ocean’s Eleven, George A.
Romero’s Land of the Dead with just a hint of Dawn of the Planet of
the Apes thrown in before turning into a battle with the undead that will
remind more than a few viewers of James Cameron’s Aliens.
Much like
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, Army of the Dead is
notable for being the first film in Snyder’s oeuvre to be filmed by himself
acting as his own director of photography.
Though Snyder does pay tribute to Larry Fong in certain scenes, this new
development is an exciting one and proves Snyder’s not only an adept and wholly
original visual stylist but he can take on the task himself now. The film also reunites Snyder with his new favorite
composer Thomas Holkenborg aka Junkie XL who provides an exciting and
energizing electronic score that goes off like a bomb amid the mayhem of explosions
and zombie blood and guts flying around the screen.
Effects
wise the gore isn’t quite as striking as what was seen in his 2004 Dawn of
the Dead and visually the film isn’t as polished but Army of the Dead has
more than a few tricks up its sleeves even the most dedicated zombie horror
fans won’t see coming. Performances are,
in an ensemble piece like this, mostly okay though the real revelation here is
Dave Bautista who is tasked with more than a few emotional scenes that share
the blood, sweat and tears shed by Mickey Rourke’s fantastic turn in Aronofsky’s
The Wrestler. Bautista has been an
action movie star for some time now since the Guardians of the Galaxy films
but here is allowed to create his most fully fledged character and performance
yet.
While some
areas of the film’s running time could have been tightened, Army of the Dead
was kind of a blast both as a Snyder film and as a zombie film. Though the genre has been beaten to death (no
pun intended), Army of the Dead injected some new life into it and
offered ideas as well as vistas not seen in previous zombie films let alone
Snyder’s own remake of Dawn of the Dead.
Snyder
might remain divisive to some filmgoers but there’s no denying the man’s talent
with the camera and clear passion for making movies whose recent director’s cut
of Justice League and Army of the Dead might well be the filmmaker’s
most personal cinematic expressions to date.
While Army of the Dead still isn’t quite on par with the havoc
wrought by his remake of Dawn of the Dead, this was a solid action/horror
flick with heart and humor and was inarguably the most fun I’ve had at the
movies this year since Nobody.
--Andrew Kotwicki
