‘Army of the Dead’ has lots of zombie action, not much story

Posted on May 28, 2021

By MARK VIOLA

I do my best when reviewing movies to be fair. In the case of “Army of the Dead,” the zombie action flick that hit Netflix last week, it’s honestly not going to be easy.

Zombie movies aren’t really my favorite subgenre, although I did watch “The Walking Dead” for quite a few seasons — until they killed off my favorite character, and I called it quits. I did enjoy the quirky “Warm Bodies,” and “World War Z” had some interesting elements, even if it was a horrible adaptation of the book.

My biggest issue going into this new movie is writer/director Zack Snyder. I really enjoyed his earlier movies, like “300,” “Sucker Punch” and “The Watchmen,” actually more so than many people. Once he jumped into the DC Comics films like “Man of Steel” and “Batman v Superman,” however, he lost me. Then we had the whole fiasco with “Justice League” and the subsequent “Snyder Cut,” and by this point, I’m just tired of him.

All of that is to say I went into “Army of the Dead” with very little actual excitement, despite the fact that Synder is a good director and the movie boasts a solid cast led by Dave Bautista (“Guardians of the Galaxy”).

But watch the movie I did, and I can say it is a decent action flick with lots of blood and gore — pretty much what you’d expect from a big-budget zombie movie. It’s not a great movie, but it offers some solid entertainment, even if it could use some serious editing to cut down its nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime.

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