Some supporting characters are memorable, the action is great, it’s got a premise that would make George A. Romero proud but with dull main characters, an undeveloped mythology and a bloated runtime, Army of the Dead feels like a mere inkling of what it could’ve been.

A group of mercenaries enter a quarantined zombie ridden Las Vegas to retrieve $200 million from a casino vault, a piece of the fortune being their pay for the job. During the mission, the team discovers that not only do their bosses have plans for the heist but that the swarms of the undead they encounter have plans of their own.

The Characters

Believe it or not but like the George Romero films that kickstarted the genre, I believe Army of the Dead is a zombie film that can serve as a good subject for analysis. Like Romero’s original Dead trilogy, Army of the Dead clearly comments on the social and political issues present at its time of production. The film references income inequality, immigration policies and the immigrant experience, all contemporary issues in America today.

Like Zack Snyder’s previous zombie effort (2004’s Dawn of the Dead) Army of the Dead is like an ensemble piece as we learn almost every character’s history and reason for joining the mission. I say the film is like an ensemble piece as it does dedicate the majority of its runtime to only a couple of characters. This couple consists of Scott (Dave Bautista) and his daughter Kate (Ella Purnell).

Scott is a former mercenary who flips burgers and Kate is volunteer at a quarantine camp. Conceptually they are reflections of the modern world they live in. Both are poor, desperate, struggling and have traumatic pasts, hence they leap at the opportunity of taking home a portion of $200 million. They want to use their share to get out of poverty and better their lives. Scott and Kate could’ve been really compelling and empathetic characters but unfortunately due to the film’s length and quality of its script, they’re pretty cliché.

When introduced to them we see that they don’t speak often and are quite distant from each other. Right off the bat, you know that they’re going to reconcile by the end. They come across as nothing but vehicles to navigate the audience through the plot and to the action. Which would’ve been fine if the film’s intention was simply to be a fun zombie action venture but with a two hour and a half runtime and most of it consisting of people talking, Army of the Dead clearly has higher aspirations that, in my opinion, it doesn’t reach.

The other characters are either there to create tonal contrast (like the comic safecracker Dieter and helicopter pilot Marianne) or to assist the film’s social commentary. A good example is Burt (Theo Russi), a brutal sadistic guard at the quarantine camp who is clearly a manifestation of America’s immigration policies during the Trump administration.

They might make you laugh, they might make you think but they won’t make you care about what happens to them.

The Zombies

There were moments in Army which brought me back to the tension and excitement I felt when I first saw Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead. Following the 2004 remake, I’ve always been a whore for fast, running zombies and I am happy to say that there are sequences in Army that do indeed top Dawn, especially in terms of scale. We see thousands upon thousands of zombies swarming the ruins of Vegas like ants. They look brilliant, alas we don’t care about who they’re chasing and, as a species, they don’t make a lot of sense.

When the characters enter the quarantined Vegas, we learn that there is a subspecies among the zombie population. A breed that is intelligent, that can communicate and form tribes. They’re known as ‘alphas’ and serve as the team’s primary source of antagonism as they’re the ones they encounter the most.

The ‘normal’ species of zombies are quite like Romero’s in that a single shot to the head can put them down but what makes them particularly distinct from their alpha relatives is that they hibernate, similar to the army of the undead in the South Korean drama Kingdom. How and why these behaviours and differences emerged in the zombie species is never explained. We know that the zombie infection is alien in origin but that’s simply not enough to justify this variety. Why does one species need to hibernate while the other does not? Why is one species intelligent while the other is not? It’s another gaping hole in the script that you can’t ignore.

Had Army of the Dead been much, MUCH shorter I could have forgiven the dull characters and undeveloped zombie mythos and be content with the abundance of action the film has to offer. However, with a whole unnecessary hour contributing to its runtime, you can’t help but use it to ponder on its many flaws. I recommend it if you’re a fan of Snyder’s Dawn remake as you will at least enjoy its few pockets of zombie action, just don’t expect anything as clever or as compelling.

I give Army of the Dead a decent 6 out of 10.