Army Of The Dead – A kickstart to Zack Snyder’s Zombie-verse
Netflix’s hybrid release Army Of The Dead is fun, gory, action-packed, and to top it all, it’s Zack Snyder’s unapologetically Zombie-verse vision. The streaming giant granted Snyder full permission to let loose. And like every other work of his fan are divided in their opinion but the common consensus still falls in favour of Snyder’s zombie. While the movie is a technical win (who could argue about that!) it at places fails to capture the audience with numerous subplots. Nonetheless, it’s understandable as this is the first in Netflix’s Zombie-verse.
An Entertaining Zombie Flick
Surprisingly, Army Of The Dead is one of Snyder’s lighter movies. The film’s best part is the Watchmen-inspired opening scene in which we see how the zombie apocalypse started and how they took over all of Las Vegas. Then we get a look at how there was a zombie fighting crew whose job was to rescue people still unaffected by the virus and bring them to safety.
Following that, millionaire Tinaka brings in Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) to form a team to bring 200 million stored in a vault in a Las Vegas Casino. Scott goes on to recruit a team to do the job but turns out the zombies are not what they expected. The zombies are shown to have a hierarchy and we have an Alpha zombie who is very strong powerful and intelligent.
Watch: Behind the FX of Army of the Dead’s Alpha Zombies | Netflix
Furthermore, we see the crew go down one by one after trying to take the money from the vault. But in the end, only two of the original cast remain. In between, we learn that Tinaka’s actual intent for the mission was getting the head of the queen zombie so that he can create his army of the dead.
Your Typical Summer Blockbuster
The movie has something for everyone, a lot of zombie-killing action, humour, and just an overall entertaining tone to keep you engaged till the end. The movie also has added a new dynamic from the basic zombies as AOTD features a different level of Zombies and Zeus the leader is just terrifying from all accounts. Junkie XL returns to compose the score for the film after collaborating with the director on Man Of Steel, Batman Vs Superman, Justice League, and 300 part 2. He supports the movie with an interesting electronic-based score.
The Sequels and Prequels
The film ends as all Zack Snyder movies end, on a cliffhanger. We get a tease of who the next Zeus will be and his base will be in Mexico City. The next Zeus is one from the team assembled by Ward called Vanderohe and will be a scarier Zeus than the current one who dies at the end. A sequel might be set up there or might take place if the time loop the film teased in the middle turns out to be true.
If the time loop theory is to be believed, the crew are stuck in an eternal time loop to make it out alive, and they see that their previous versions have died much before them. The prequel called Army of the Thieves is set on the vault cracker Deiter who shines in his moments in the original film.
An anime series is also in development which will showcase who the zombie was and how the virus was created/discovered. Overall, Army of the dead signifies the start of a massive zombie universe at Netflix overseen by Zack Snyder and it is a lot of fun watching Snyder create another universe without any shackles to his creativity.
