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Army of the Dead review: Is Zack Snyder s Netflix movie worth a watch?
Always bet on dead. 11/05/2021
Zack Snyder might be more known for his DC work nowadays, but he broke through with the celebrated
Dawn of the Dead remake in 2004 and his new Netflix movie,
Love him or hate him as a director, you can always tell a Snyder movie from the visual style and, often, an overload of ideas.
Army of the Dead is no exception as Netflix let Snyder deliver his unadulterated vision – for better and for worse.
Gif: Netflix
At this late stage into the zombie movie/tv/book game, the question that comes to mind whenever a new project in the genre debuts is what it has to add to the larger canon of zombie lore that’s given us an entire taxonomy of fictional flesh-eating ghouls. Familiar as
Army of the Dead’s constituent parts will be to fans of the genre, the movie pulls them all together into a surprisingly enjoyable, if at times emotionally-overwrought shoot-em-up that speaks to a lot of pandemic-era anxieties.
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Justice League’s Zack Snyder, could accurately be described as formulaic in many moments. But the movie’s familiar beats all work as reminders of the filmmakers’ self-awareness about the cinematic space they were working in.
Las Vegas is a war zone in
Army of the Dead,
Zack Snyder‘s gore-tastic shoot ’em up about a team of good-looking mercenaries trying to steal $200 million from a casino safe. That would be hard enough on its own, but to complicate matters, a zombie outbreak has turned Vegas into a place of non-stop death and carnage. And just to further complicate matters, the government has decided to drop a nuclear bomb on the Gambling Capital of the World. So our heroes have to dodge the living dead, break into a safe, and get the hell out of town before they get nuked. Sounds like a piece of cake, right?
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The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials.
The opening credits for the zombie-packed heist thriller “Army of the Dead” play out over a buffet of Boschian images, emphasis on the buffet. The walking (and running) dead have overtaken Las Vegas, and the director, Zack Snyder, illustrates the fallout with a series of painterly Grand Guignol tableaus. Slot-machine junkies lose their earnings and their innards; infected strippers turn a Roman bath into a bloodbath. An aging Elvis impersonator wanders down the Strip, with only a telltale smear around his mouth to suggest he’s having an unusual morning. Military forces are sent in to contain the threat, and when that fails, they firebomb and wall off the entire city. What splatters in V
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