Army of the Dead (2021)

Synopsis

A former mercenary is approached by a casino owner and offered a job to recover $200 million dollars from a vault beneath Vegas. The problem? The city has been infested with zombies and the military are going to nuke it in three days. The merc recruits a team (of new phases and old) to enter the city. Unfortunately, despite his history fighting zombies in the city, things are quite the way he remembers them. 

Review

Damn, for all the crap I give him, Zack Snyder knows how to do zombies right. This movie has a lot going for it. The plot is fantastic. Who doesn't want to see a Vegas heist movie with zombies? The visuals are fantastic too. Snyder has style down for sure. The opening montage is fantastic and heart breaking. The Richard Cheese cover of Viva Las Vegas is great. This is also a nice throwback to Snyder's Dawn of the Dead (which features Cheese's cover of Down with the Sickness). There's another quick throwback to that flick. At one point a character is looking at Twitter and there is mention of the 2004 Milwaukee outbreak. 

The cast a great. I love Dave Bautista (and not just because I'm a wrestling fan). He's a good modern action star. He's built, hot, and has some comedic chops. Other than Bautista, I think the two other standouts were Matthias Schweighöfer's Dieter and Tig Notaro's Marianne Peters. Dieter has the film's best bits. He's just a fun fish out of water character. Army isn't the last we'll see of him either. The actor is reprising the character in Thieves of the Dead, a prequel film he's directing. Notaro's Peters is a fun character too. The character was originally going to be played by Chris D'Elia, but he was removed from the film after several sexual misconduct allegations against him came to light in 2020. Notaro was added in via green screen and CGI. Unfortunately she wasn't able to put too much of her own spin on things because she had to say the lines as written, because the reactions were already filmed. Honestly, I'm cool with doing this to all creeps. 

There are some mysteries in the film. It's implied early on that the plague may be alien in nature. Two UFO's can be seen in the first few minutes. In addition, in at least one part of the movie there is a robot zombie. One of the alpha zombies is killed, but you can see a metal skull and it's oil, not blood coming out of him. Hopefully these things will be addressed in the franchise. In addition to the Thieves prequel, an anime prequel is in the works too.

All praise aside, the film doesn't have a steady tone. It goes from over the top and kind of funny, to really dark quite a bit. To be honest, I think Snyder is still (understandably) dealing with the loss of his daughter. Considering a big subplot of the film is about a father and daughter, it makes since that his feelings might come through on screen. 

Ultimately, the movie is an entertaining flick and can definitely be mined for gaming ideas. Check it out on Netflix.

In Your Game

Though it has zombie in the name, Robot Zombies are actually sophisticated robots that are disguised to look like zombies. Were they created by corporations, the government, or even aliens? No one is sure. 

Robot Zombie

Armor Class: 14

Hit Dice: 6

Move: 15

Actions: 1

Attack Damage: Slam (1d6)

Special: Robot

Bonuses: +4 to Melee Attacks, +2 to Damage

Morale: 10

Pack Size: Any

• Robot: Immunity to Poisons, Diseases, Toxins, Fear, Mind Probing, Pain, Surprise Attack damage, and Critical Hits.