ZACK SNYDER'S ZOMBIES IN VEGAS FLICK 'ARMY OF THE DEAD'

Army of the Dead Year: 2021 Rates: **

It's no secret Zack Snyder's ARMY OF THE DEAD has a Zombie Tiger. But the funny part is that, during what's supposed to be an action-packed third act, the Zombie Tiger actually yawns, watching passively as a horde of intelligent "Alpha Zombies" rush towards a building where a ragtag group of heroes, anti-heroes and just plain terrible men are stealing loads of cash from a casino in Las Vegas, an enclosed city much like Manhattan in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, and the only place in America still harboring zombies from a zombie war we see via montage during the opening credits...

Long review short... The good guy, led by a stiff, monotone Dave Bautista, is, along with his daughter, so painfully idealistic they're boring, and annoying. Then there's a lesbian chopper pilot trying for the smart allecky Han Solo mixed with Ripley from ALIENS; the deliberate weak-link nerd who's technically important nonetheless; an honorably tough second-in-command; a rogue female tougher and deadlier than any male; and of course, those dirty rotten macho characters who, in today's age of preachy political correctness, you can no longer "love to hate" since their own hatred of everything the filmmaker loves makes them deserving of not only extra-horrible deaths, but they're not even supposed to be guiltily-entertaining in the process...

The Yawning Zombie Tiger of Army of the Dead

So ARMY OF THE DEAD is a pretty bad movie, although not as bad as some are saying because you MIGHT want to stay till the end, to see how things pan out...

At which point the ultimate let-down finale and post-finale finale could leave you hating yourself for having wanted to stick around in the first place, but... Either way, movies, as well as their characters (far too many here to remain interesting), are just not as fun as they used to be...

The reason that spitfire-dialog comedies and pure-action action flicks were once only 90-minutes long is there's just so much we can either laugh along with or immensely marvel at... 2 1/2 hours is fine for an epic, say, like GOODFELLAS, detailing the entire life of a character in peril. But for a basic Heist Movie with a zombie twist... or a basic Zombie movie with a heist twist... it's an hour too long, and just not worth the wait. 

Dave Bautista in ARMY OF THE DEAD

The American Werewolf in London "help me up" before being mauled Army of the Dead homage

Las Vegas CGI in ARMY OF THE DEAD

There's even a zombie horse in ARMY OF THE DEAD