Army of the Dead
Year: 2021
Rating: R
Length: 148 minutes / 2.46 hours
Some of the most original movies I’ve seen have mixed genres to create something new. Movies like Cowboys & Aliens (2011) combine the western and sci-fi genres, while movies like Army of the Dead (2021) work by fusing zombie movies with heist films. The tropes of these genres can often accentuate each other and can fuel character development or drive the plot. The premise of Army of the Dead might be a weak reason to motivate the characters to risk their lives in the first place, but as long as the result is a Las Vegas-themed zombie apocalypse, it works.
While I’m not generally a fan of “serious” zombie films, I can appreciate the level of depth put into the undead in this movie. Generally, “smart” zombies are much more interesting than those that mindlessly wander around and wait for someone to make a noise. I also loved the tongue-in-cheek use of “Viva Las Vegas” for the opening credits, which set the tone of the whole movie. Unfortunately, with such a huge cast of characters for this heist, I only found Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer) and Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro) entertaining and criminally underused.
Even though mixing genres can use tropes to strengthen weaknesses, it can also accentuate the glaring holes in these genres. For Army of the Dead, it tries to rely on the “small crew” of a heist film but then needs to bloat that crew so that the threat of zombies can also be overcome. As a result, there were a lot of characters (even main ones like Scott Ward (Dave Bautista)) that I didn’t fully understand their motivations. In fact, I was confused with a lot of this movie as it tried to add backstory to characters I knew were going to die anyway.
An interesting genre mixture but with some faults of both genres, I give Army of the Dead 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
