Movie Review: Army of the Dead

Being at the forefront of DC's connected universe experiment really restricted what Zack Snyder was able to do creatively for the better part of a decade. Once the Justice League debacle happened, the relationship between Snyder and Warner Brothers deteriorated to the point where all of his future projects in that world were shelved and the cult favorite filmmaker was free to embark on another endeavor for the first time since 2011. So what did Snyder do with his newfound flexibility? What any ambitious director who has routinely clashed with overbearing studio executives would do: Take advantage of Netflix's deep pockets and reputation as the greatest champion of giving artists total creative control in the industry right now to make a passion project that nobody else would let him make. That project ended up being Army of the Dead, a zombie heist movie that Snyder has had on the back burner since 2007, and after the relentlessly dour nature of his superhero trilogy, this big, dumb adrenaline rush makes for a pretty ideal pallet cleanser.

Army of the Dead is akin to watching a kid react to getting out of school for the summer. After being cooped up with a bunch of sticklers asking him to play by their rules for such a long time, Snyder is (rightfully) feeling liberated and ready to have some fun now that he's the one setting the agenda. Given that the freewheeling, wide-eyed version of Snyder has been buried since Sucker Punch, it's a more than welcome sight to see it resurface.

As messy as some key elements of the story and undead mythology can be-particularly in the last 25 minutes when some puzzling, easily avoidable writing missteps get in the way of an otherwise appropriately explosive finale to a story about a horde of zombies greatly complicating the theft of $200 million from the vault of a long-vacated Las Vegas casino-there's a giddy, frantic energy behind this project that is reminiscent of Snyder's best work (Dawn of the Dead, 300). Through the confident direction and abundance of nice little touches including the refreshing dose of humor to the proceedings, everything from the centerpiece safecracking/zombie showdown setpieces down to the obligatory "assemble the team" chunk of the story that eats up much of the first hour is approached with such a natural ease that it allows the movie to fly by. Having a project be so effortlessly engrossing and electrically paced is a great turnaround for Snyder-whose DCU efforts struggled mightily on that front- that will hopefully become a staple of his work moving forward.     

Of course, the area where Snyder's enthusiasm shines through the most is the birth and realization of the zombies. True to his excess-ridden style, he used the opportunity to write his own lore to create a universe where the slow, weak zombies have all perished and the remaining undead are an evolved species that have heightened speed/strength and can communicate in a sophisticated fashion that rivals or even exceeds what humans are capable of. In some ways, he goes completely overboard by alluding to variants in the undead DNA that are never explained or just plain stupid, but the general design and traits of these zombies are so cool that the more absurd elements of their being are easy enough to forgive. 

When it comes to the actual zombie action, Army of the Dead does it big and right. Characters both human and zombie meet gruesome demises that leave an impact, the arsenal of weapons used is just preposterous and there's a couple of sequences that display downright masterful levels of tension and panache. Staging gory, extravagant dismemberments of and by the undead is partly how the cult status surrounding Snyder came to be and 16 years after he burst onto the scene with Dawn of the Dead, that deft touch remains completely in tact.

While Army of the Dead is unquestionably held back a bit by Snyder's glaring deficiencies as a writer (unfocused storytelling and coming up with truly memorable characters), it's still easily his most rewarding project since 300. Getting a chance to make a completely original project where his vision was completely unimpeded is a needed reminder as to why he's one of the best architects of pure spectacle working in Hollywood today. This is likely just the start of the creatively unchained Snyder-era at Netflix and it's exciting to think about what kind of exhilarating nonsense he's going to come up with next now that he's found the ideal partner to fund his wildest ideas.          

Grade: B+