Army of the Dead (2021)

[Leisher]

Netflix Exclusive

[TheCatt]

Initial release: May 21, 2021

[GORDON]

Netflix.

Another Zac Snyder zombie movie.

Meh.

Mediocre movie, and at least one really dumb continuity error.

[Leisher]

Zack Snyder is a great director, but as a writer... Let's just say I checked the IMDB page to make sure Rian Johnson didn't write this turd. Not that I hated it because it was a beautifully shot movie, with a fun premise, and good action. However, that story was complete dogshit.

The premise is awesome. An incident leads to Vegas becoming a city of the undead, but the rest of the world is still normal. Bautista gets hired to put together a team to go in and rob a casino. We know most of the team thanks to the opening credits, which are a cool bit of storytelling.

Unfortunately, the devil is in the details and that's where the story falls apart. First of all, the movie simply does not work without teleporter technology, which does not exist in the film, so... Secondly, Zack really gets loose with zombie rules and what "undead" means to the point of stupidity. Romero did the same thing in Land of the Dead and it sucked there too. Thirdly, the characters are all random and one dimensional. They never really tell us anything about them, so when they die it doesn't mean anything. This is a HUGE problem for one death in particular. Fifth, there is a moment when a twist, that you'll know is coming, occurs and completely negates every single aspect of the rest of the story. It makes everything completely pointless. I cannot oversell this fact. The entire plot of the movie becomes completely irrelevant. This was not thought out well at all.

There are also huge lulls in any sort of action, and frankly, of anything remotely interesting. When this movie is good, it's good, but when it's not: Zzzzzz.

[GORDON]

The daughter was super dumb and annoying. And I don't know if she was supposed to be seen that way.

[Leisher]

Did you notice one of the key plot points completely disappeared in the helicopter scene?

Also, the survivor at the end...does anyone in Hollywood understand nuclear weapons?

[Leisher]

People online saying there's a UFO in the opening scene and robot zombies later in the movie. I must have missed those things. What I didn't miss were the obvious corpses of their team from a former timeline. I fully expect we're going to get a sequel where Bautista has to go in and save his team from dying or something.

[GORDON]

Things I noticed:

- The "mother" the daughter saved didn't seem to be in the helicopter crash.

- And what I really noticed... they make their daring helicopter escape off the casino roof, like 9 minutes before the nuke, and the Alpha Zombie is up there and almost got them. They start flying to the other casino to rescue the "mother." Alpha watches them fly away. So it should take them, like 90 seconds to get to that next casino, way ahead of the zombie hoard.... but we see Alpha on his horse already ahead of them. It should have taken Alpha at least 5 minutes to even get to his horse, much less be ahead of the helicopter. It was just dumb.

- So... do you think there was actually a time loop? I just figured it was the previous team on that mission, and they made poor decisions.

- Also, the mole could have accomplished his mission when they were first "paying tribute" to the showgirl. If the entire mission was actually to get the zombie sample, it all, 100%, could have been done right there without the subterfuge of a casino heist.

I know for a fact I can write better plot points than that.

[Cakedaddy]

Army cargo door opens. Orders are to "Get away". Why not "Deploy incendiary grenade, or any grenade, to neutralize the threat". Also, why was it so lightly escorted? Also, why was in it a container that would just fall open when it fell over? At this point, I knew to turn my brain off. But I didn't turn it off enough and I kept noticing things too.

I'm taking the rear cause I don't trust you. Leaves a 50ft gap between self and rest of group and becomes separated. Why was she SO far behind the group?

There were a bunch of things in between that I can't think of.

Lock the guy in the vault to 'save him'. Now he starves/suffocates in a vault.

"Don't stop for anything". Proceed to stop and try to kill all of the rushing zombies. Guy who DIDN'T stop for anything, stops to tell the tard that did to hurry up, and then dies.

Talk about it on the helicopter. Alpha is chasing you.

Where'd Geeta go?

How the hell did he get out of the vault?

[GORDON]

Drax's daughter gets her way by literally threatening, "If you don't let me go, I'm gonna kill myself."

[Leisher]

- So... do you think there was actually a time loop? I just figured it was the previous team on that mission, and they made poor decisions.

Yeah, did you notice the very unique key necklace worn by one of the corpses was the same as one worn by one of their team members? Throw into it the other vault plans they found and maybe the one guy wasn't lying when he said other teams were news to him. All those things could be from their previous trips in.

- The "mother" the daughter saved didn't seem to be in the helicopter crash.

That's the key plot point that totally disappeared. She was never seen in the helicopter nor after the crash, and Drax's kid didn't even bother looking for her despite getting everyone killed to save her 10 minutes earlier.

- And what I really noticed... they make their daring helicopter escape off the casino roof, like 9 minutes before the nuke, and the Alpha Zombie is up there and almost got them. They start flying to the other casino to rescue the "mother." Alpha watches them fly away. So it should take them, like 90 seconds to get to that next casino, way ahead of the zombie hoard.... but we see Alpha on his horse already ahead of them. It should have taken Alpha at least 5 minutes to even get to his horse, much less be ahead of the helicopter. It was just dumb.

This is one of the biggest talking points for people hating on the film.

And I don't know how I feel about the alphas. I am fine with someone toying with the zombie mythos a bit, but at what point are these just new monsters? Mutated versions of humanity rather than the undead? Why do they have to be zombies? Just make new monsters if you want them to start breeding.

- Also, the mole could have accomplished his mission when they were first "paying tribute" to the showgirl. If the entire mission was actually to get the zombie sample, it all, 100%, could have been done right there without the subterfuge of a casino heist.

This is the movie's biggest sin and what made everything else completely pointless. Zack even doubled down on the stupid by having the inside man cut a secret deal with the coyote.
How the plan should have gone:
1. Hire coyote.
2. Get info on which one to attack.
3. Go inside with heavily armed and trained mercs.
4. Rope both. Leave girl zombie alive and take the head of the nothing alpha.
5. Leave immediately.
Instead, we get:
1. Hire randoms to pull off a fake heist.
1a. Risk everything, including future investigations, by simply letting someone walk who knew everything about your plans.
2. Pay for their equipment and transport.
3. Insert a mole, that anyone would guess will betray the team, and have him make a backdoor deal with the coyote that could derail everything if she talks.
4. Ignore the opportunity to get a head immediately.
5. Go deeper into enemy territory and risk being caught again by murdering another team member.
6. Sneak out through the hibernating zombies to get that head.
7. Head back into the casino again to kill team.
8. I guess at that point leave?

So fucking dumb.

I'm taking the rear cause I don't trust you. Leaves a 50ft gap between self and rest of group and becomes separated. Why was she SO far behind the group?

This was the first one that died? How did she go from raising her hand when asked who had never killed a zombie to John Wick?

How the hell did he get out of the vault?

I had the same question. I also wondered how he walked through miles of freshly irradiated Vegas without dying.

[GORDON]

Consensus seems to be that this movie is a mess.

Un-release the Snyder Cut!

[Leisher]

Being a great director does not mean you are a great writer. (EX: Rian Johnson)

Snyder's best movie, by far, was when he made a frame by frame remake of a graphic novel.

Why do Hollywood egos trump their desire to please fans and make bigger profits?

All they would need to do is hire one person to do QC on the story. They would review the script prior to shooting, watch the dailies with the director, and then assist in editing to ensure no key plot points are cut.

[Leisher]

This is a really good one. I legit lost it at the last cast member.

[TheCatt]

Army of Thieves Prequel - It was OK, focuses on the safecracker dude.

[TheCatt]

Also...

How big would a metal box be to hold $250,000,000.00 of $100.00 dollar bills?

It should fit comfortably into a cube-shaped metal box measuring 5' x 5' x 5'.

Was the safe money $20s?

[TheCatt]

Also, the mole could have accomplished his mission when they were first "paying tribute" to the showgirl. If the entire mission was actually to get the zombie sample, it all, 100%, could have been done right there without the subterfuge of a casino heist.

Right? WTF?

Talk about it on the helicopter. Alpha is chasing you.

Where'd Geeta go?

How the hell did he get out of the vault?

I just assume it's easier to get out of vaults? I dunno, are they made that way? The dude who originally made it wanted to DIE in it, so I don't see why he would have made it easy/possible to get from the inside.

Anyway, this movie was dumb.