Movie Review: Army of the Dead is a heist film with Zombies

When I think about Dave Bautista, I think about the character Drax. You know, the muscular, bald, shirtless alien from Guardians of the Galaxy who does not understand metaphors and rushes into battle without thinking. Dave Bautista does an excellent job playing the character. Now he takes his acting talent somewhere else in Zack Snyder latest movie Army of the Dead

Spoilers: So in the movie, Dave plays Scott Ward. Scott Ward is what I would say resembles today war veterans. The type that ends up serving his country, but after leaving the military ends up working some low level, low paying job. In Scott case he is a cook at a small restaurant. Scott is one day approached by Bly Tanaka to go into Zombie Las Vegas, and retrieve two hundred million dollars from a safe in a casino. The heist must be done before congress launches a nuke on Las Vegas. Scott puts together a team consisting of his two former teammates Maria Cruz and Vanderohe, chopper pilot Marianne Peters, safe cracker Dieter Ludwig, and sharpshooter Mikey Guzman. Also coming along on the suicidal mission are smuggler Lily, Tanaka head of security Martin, Scott daughter Kate, and a few unremarkable characters that are there to just add to the body count. Kate is going along because Lily had smuggled her friend Geeta into Las Vegas, and Geeta never came out. Kate believes Geeta is still alive. Scott and Kate are both unaware that Tanaka has ulterior motives for the heist.

Once inside the city, we are introduced to a whole new breed of zombie. These zombies are smarter, and faster than the mindless flesh eaters you see in movies. We meet a zombie nicknamed Queen, who Lily offers a sacrifice in order to gain safe entry into the city. Also, these zombies have a pet zombie tiger roaming around, which is awesome.

At the end of the movie there are a few twist and turns. While there where a few surprises, most of the stuff ended up being really predictable. Some of it was predictable on purpose, which is fine. I believe Snyder told the story he wanted to tell, and that is all that matters. On the up side all the characters have some memorable personalities such as Marianne who believes she is on the top of hierarchy in the group, Dieter the lovable, intelligent, yet seemingly clueless safecracker, Guzman the gun loving sharpshooter, Lily the smuggler with secrets, Maria Cruz the potential love interest, and than we have Scott the mercenary who has a sad and not complicated past. A lot of memorable characters. I just think more than two deserved to make it to the end.