Army of the Dead
Zack Snyder packs as much gore as is digitally possible into his zombie epic set in Vegas.
The ultimate gamble: daredevil Dave Bautista
The title is misleading. They’re not an army and they’re not dead. They are the citizens of Las Vegas and they are very much undead. It all started with a wedding. A newly hitched couple are speeding through the desert, spending less attention to the road than their raging hormones. Coming in the opposite direction is a military convoy, the driver of the lead vehicle spending less attention to the road than musing over the potential of his cargo (dispatched from Area 51). We, the audience, know what is about to happen – up to a point. After the collision, a zombie escapes from a reinforced trailer and heads for Vegas. And on this occasion what happens in Vegas is not planning to stay in Vegas…
Following perhaps the bloodiest opening credit sequence in film history, we are introduced to Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), a retired mercenary haunted by the memory of having killed his wife in an act of mercy. He is then approached by casino owner Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada), who offers him $50 million to break into his own vault and haul the contents out of Vegas before the army nukes the city. So Scott Ward rounds up a crew for the mission, the bravest, most accomplished and reckless daredevils he can find, like Lee Marvin did in The Dirty Dozen and Brad Pitt did in Inglourious Basterds. Each mercenary is offered half the amount of the previous recruit, and is selected for his or her particular skill. So we have the helicopter pilot (Tig Notaro), the safecracker (Matthias Schweighöfer), the sharpshooter (Raúl Castillo), and so on. They are a colourful bunch and for the most part have each other’s backs. But, of course, there will be complications…
The director Zack Snyder does neither subtlety nor brevity. Only this March he released his four-hour-plus Zack Snyder's Justice League, and here he pulls back the running time to a more palatable 147 minutes. It is to his credit, though, that the film doesn’t feel that long, largely because the characters he has created are such a vivid lot, each with their own agenda. One such is Kate Ward (the London-born Ella Purnell), Scott’s own daughter, who is determined to save three women trapped in the city, for whom she feels responsible. Snyder has utilised his $90m budget to good effect, both with his deployment of exploding heads and a novel zombie cast, including a mutated tiger than has escaped from a Siegfried & Roy act. There are a number of suitably intense action set pieces, a smattering of dark humour and a song soundtrack that jollies the mayhem along (The Cranberries’ ‘Zombie', The Raveonettes ‘The End’ and, in an elevator, a snatch of Culture Club’s ‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?'). Zombie zealots should not be disappointed.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighöfer, Nora Arnezeder, Hiroyuki Sanada, Garret Dillahunt, Tig Notaro, Raúl Castillo, Huma Qureshi, Samantha Win, Richard Cetrone, Michael Cassidy.
Dir Zack Snyder, Pro Deborah Snyder, Wesley Coller and Zack Snyder, Screenplay Zack Snyder, Shay Hatten and Joby Harold, Ph Zack Snyder, Pro Des Julie Berghoff, Ed Dody Dorn, Music Tom Holkenborg, Costumes Stephanie Porter, Sound Scott Hecker and Chuck Michael, Dialect coach Tanera Marshall.
The Stone Quarry-Netflix.
147 mins. USA. 2021. Rel: 21 May 2021. Available on Netflix. Cert. 18.
