I REALLY WANTED TO LOVE THIS ONE…
Ever since I saw Bautista in Guardians of The Galaxy, I’ve been a fan. If there’s a movie that features him as the lead, odds are I’m watching it, and the odds are that I’ll enjoy it. Unfortunately, the odds were with the house and against me on this one, because The Army of the Dead was one of the worst movies of the year. And I really-truly-madly-deeply wanted to love this movie because it was about zombies, and it was directed by Zach Snyder. I mean, who doesn’t love Zombieland, right? And the Justice League Snyder cut was probably one the best superhero movies to date.
~sigh~
Yeah, but I have to be straight up with you. This movie sucked.
From here on out, there’s going to be a lot of spoilers, because I have a handful of complaints I have to get off my chest. So, if you didn’t see the movie yet, check out now.
THE SCRIPT
Screenwriting is not what it used to be. Screenwriters, at one point in time, used to be like a chef at a high-end restaurant, particular with the ingredients they used to create their dishes. But unfortunately, the taste of the writers in the modern era, is anything but discriminating.
The Army of The Dead has a rather simple storyline. Scott Ward (Bautista), is a military hero who fought heroically against the zombies in Vegas, and when we catch up with him in the present, he’s flipping burgers. He is approached by a Japanese Businessman with a proposition. There’s 200 million dollars in an underground vault at a hotel, and if Ward can retrieve it, he’ll pay him 50 million dollars. Ward assembles his team, drops into Vegas Zombieland, and as expected, things go south – way south.
In the end, nothing gets accomplished. Ward’s team doesn’t retrieve any of the 200 million, none of the characters grow. And well, everyone except Ward’s daughter, Kate, dies. The greedy Japanese Businessman lives on, and of course, like every horror movie, the zombie virus escapes Vegas, just in case Netflix wants a sequel. Now, this is not why I had a major problem with it.
The primary reason why this movie drove me crazy, is that the characters were stupid and didn’t behave like normal people.
Have you ever watched a scene in a movie where a house was on fire, and the hero breaks into the house to rescue the damsel, and they both run for the exit. But, before they run out of the door, which is just a few feet away, the damsel and the hero have their “moment,” where they look into each other’s eyes, express their love for each other, while the house crumbles away and flames claw at their clothes. This “moment” happens while the audience yells, “What are you doing!!!! Get out of the house! It’s on fire!”
Directors would explain to us normal people that the characters were having “a moment.”
Well, there were 5 to 7 times this happened in this movie – where characters just decided to have “a moment” at the worse times. I mean, seriously. Should we have “a moment” when we are about to get nuked, and we are trying to flee Vegas? Let’s not forget that there are 10,000 zombies after us. Uhm, can we have “this moment” at an appropriate time?
Then there was the fact that the movie just didn’t explain itself well.
Scott Ward was a decorated War Hero but flipping burgers. He even joked about it to the Japanese Businessman, saying something like, “Most people would ask, why a guy who received the Medal of Freedom, was flipping burgers” and then – he didn’t offer any explanation. WHY WAS HE FLIPPING BURGERS DAMMIT! I bet the answer is interesting.
Also, the origin of the Alpha Zombie didn’t make any sense. Apparently, there are two versions of zombies in this movie: one is your usual stupid cliche zombies, and the others are these parkour zombies who can flip over cars, run really fast, and dodge bullets. The parkour zombies were turned by the “Alpha Zombie.” But the “Alpha Zombie” isn’t really the Alpha Zombie, but a soldier who was turned by the true “Alpha-Alpha Zombie” in the beginning. This “Alpha-Alpha Zombie” didn’t look like a zombie, moved extremely fast, could easily dodge bullets, and sneak up on anyone like a ninja. What happened to him? So there-in lied the big hole to the origin story of the Alpha Zombie, since he wasn’t the true Alpha Zombie, he shouldn’t have able to create parkour zombies. He should have only been able to create cliche zombies. When screenwriters create the rules for their world, they need to follow them.
And why did this Alpha Zombie sound like a dinosaur?
AND THEN…THERE WERE THE CHARACTERS…
Every character was entertainingly different and cartoonish, but there wasn’t one character on screen that the audience could cheer for. Scott Ward, who was the obvious protagonist, was flat as a pancake. What were his motivation, fears, triggers, and agendas? Hey, even action flics need three-dimensional characters.
You know, there was a character who loved to use a concrete hand saw to fight zombies, who didn’t even use the hand saw once in the movie. And Kate Ward, who’s not a soldier at all, is the best marksman out of all them. How did that happen? They don’t explain it. But she managed to kill 9 or 10 parkour zombies with a single round to the head. These same types of zombies, by the way, could dodge bullets fired from her father’s automatic machine gun. And by the way, they don’t have to move very fast to dodge those bullets. Oh yeah, I have to also add that Kate Ward, through her stupid decisions, killed her father, the entire team, and even the people she was trying to rescue. Good job Kate.
There was also a character who was an excellent marksman, by the way. Ward recruited him after watching a youtube video where he shot three zombies dead with one bullet. But he hardly shoots his gun or displays any sharp-shooting skills during the movie. You would think, Zach Snyder would pull out some John Wick Gun-Fu moves with this character, but nope, nada, zilch. This character didn’t even help shoot the zombies off of his girlfriend.
And I can’t forget the helicopter pilot, an alpha-female who probably could chop wood better than me, decides to have “a moment” with Ward, just as he is stepping onto her helicopter. Yes – another lovely “moment.” And guess what, that crazy Alpha Zombie is after them, and they’re about a few minutes till a nuke strikes Vegas. After their great “moment” the helicopter pilot sees the Alpha Zombie and what does she do? She slowly maneuvers left, instead of pulling on the collective and making her chopper climb vertically. I mean, who does that? Who takes off from a helicopter pad a few feet off the ground, and pulls left? So what happens? The Alpha Zombie is now able to fully jump into the chopper.
This script….
This screenplay….
The characters….
Everything is so…dumb. I can’t find a better word to describe it, but it’s really dumb.
It could have…it should have been written with much more care…
GRADE: F
All right, who bit the tiger
DIRECTION
Zack Snyder is not only the director of Army of the Dead, but he is also the Director of Photography, and also responsible for the story. He did not write the script for the movie, but more than likely, had overall control of the screenplay. Just to let you know, Zack Snyder doesn’t write the script for most of his movies, he just writes the story, which is two different things.
Visually, the movie was pretty to look at, and the fight scenes were entertaining and easy to understand. But the story was just weak and should I dare say – stupid. And we can’t just blame the writers for this, we have to point the finger at the director. I’m sorry Zack, you really failed on this one.
GRADE: F
LAST THOUGHTS
First things first. This movie isn’t for children. There is nudity and adult situations, not to mention, pretty graphic death scenes.
Should you watch it? Well, it’s free if you have Netflix, so why not, right? But you really have to check your brain, commonsense, and everything else at the door. If you think critically, you won’t have a good time. For me, I’m only watching it once, even if it’s free. Never again.
Who would have thought the worse movie of the year, so far, would be directed by Zack Snyder and star Bautista.
GRADE: F
Steve Young
