Army of the Dead (Zack Snyder)

[Skitch]

What are we all too lazy to make polls now?

I sincerely didn't care enough. DAMN did I dislike this.

[Morris Schæffer]

This was sorta fun and big. Goes overboard with Aliens references, down to the 'screwing each other over for a percentage' line. But where Aliens' finale is totally plausible when [

Show Spoiler

Ripley goes looking for Newt (because of her tracking beacon Ripley sorta knew where to go)

], here [

Show Spoiler

Bautista enters a huge skyscraper looking for his daughter, and sort of stumbles into her. Yeah, he hears gunshots, but still.

].

It's a bit of a shootemup, kinda derivative (Hello Red bandana girl, hello shady outsider who tags along and pretends to be Carter Burke), but still with some tension and a fairly cool and plausible sense of place.

EDIT: wish they left out the daughter crap altogether, movie has moments of humour that mostly didn't work.

[Mr. McGibblets]

There's not nearly enough action and there are way too many LONG character moments with characters that we don't care about at all.

[Dukefrukem]

There's not nearly enough action and there are way too many LONG character moments with characters that we don't care about at all.

Totally. Even the characters we do care about, get these long awkward discussions that make no sense. Like the discussion between Ella Purnell and Dave Bautista about why they are estranged. Something that could have been cleared up in 10 seconds before the trip, ends up being this long drawn out discussion. Also Purnell showing off some really bad acting in that scene. Bautista isn't exactly daniel day lewis, so the scene is pretty bad.

[Dukefrukem]

My eyes rolled out of my head when Cranberries acoustic version of "zombie" started playing.

edit: Haha they said the same thing in this video that I did in my LB review about why the heist even needs to happen. Why can't they just do the thing they wanted to do.

Edit 2: LOL they bring up the Cranberries song too! bwhahhaha I rock.

[Dukefrukem]

And it wasn't until THIS video did i realize the parallels with Aliens (wish I thought of that). All the way down to the helicopter on the roof and the nuclear explosion.

Dead pixel didn't bother me / didn't notice.

[Spun Lepton]

I successfully turned off my brain and just enjoyed it. It's freaking Zack Snyder, people.

[Mal]

He is not a good filmmaker, lol.

[megladon8]

He is not a good filmmaker, lol.

Gotta say I agree.

He can make a really, really pretty image.

But his story telling skills are awful.

There's been a plethora of stuff coming out about the umpteen movie ideas and scripts he has pitched to various companies over the years, and no one is interested.

He's a super great, sweet guy. I don't know of anyone who has a single bad thing to say about HIM...but his work is...yeah...

[Skitch]

You may not like his films, (and thats totally fair), but they are at least not boring cliche run-of-the-mill. Even Sucker Punch with I'm being on record of not being a fan, he shot the hell out of that flick.

[megladon8]

You may not like his films, (and thats totally fair), but they are at least not boring cliche run-of-the-mill. Even Sucker Punch with I'm being on record of not being a fan, he shot the hell out of that flick.

Sure, and I appreciate that to an extent. But that doesn't equal good at the end of the day.

A lot of his ideas (like his proposed idea for the JL trilogy that will never be) are original and not boring run of the mill...but they're still terrible.

[Mr. McGibblets]

I've seen 3 or 4 Snyder movies and none of them are good. I'd probably like the long, long cut of Watchmen, but the theatrical was bad enough that I never checked it out.

[Henry Gale]

I accidentally voted "Yay" on this but I did not like it much!

In a way, formally and tonally, this is the truest zombie movie ever made. That is, in the way that a zombie exists in two states, living and dead, Snyder's creation here simultaneously exists in polar opposite states, unsure whether it's a send-up or sincere, nihilistic or maudlin, frustrating or fun, and also showing that a script can feel thin and breezy but somehow also require two and a half hours of time on screen.

And in the same way, despite not feeling much investment in it either before or as I watched it, I also find myself deeply disappointed that it didn't deliver so much more. There are glimpses of interesting potential -- mostly in those opening sequences, but even just its ticking-bomb heist premise, its setting, intermittent moments where the cast really
get to shine, and the flashes of a more surreal, gleefully absurd movie sprinkled throughout-- but in the end, it's something that just feels empty, if still very animated and inexplicably fascinating, but mostly worth avoiding. So again, a zombie.

5.6


EDIT (or at least was when I originally added it in on letterboxd):
I forgot to mention the cinematography here, but it really is as shallow and messy as the rest of it. I wish I could say that the fact that it looks like no movie or series I've seen manages to somehow make it noteworthy and unique, but it's mostly just distracting and unappealing. If there's one thing Snyder has always found a way of delivering on in the past, it's compelling compositions (with or without his big tableau splashes or speed ramps on the frames he seems most proud of), but here we have a movie that he opted to shoot himself, and instead of that theoretically adding a more assured, personal touch, the choice instead results in a visual style that no longer feels like it came from him, as if he had to spend more time figuring out how to execute the shots instead of being left to create interesting ideas for them.

Outside of the opening credits, I don't know if I would've ever guessed that Snyder even directed this, nevermind put on even more hats in production than usual. And maybe for those who dislike his past work, that lack of his established cinematic identity could sound like an intriguing fresh start, but I would instead say that those detractors need to find more joy in the purity of his past visions, because even at their most flawed, they are distinct and bold. This is not.

[Dukefrukem]

EDIT (or at least was when I originally added it in on letterboxd):
I forgot to mention the cinematography here, but it really is as shallow and messy as the rest of it.

One thing I learned from the RLM video, was this was Zack's first attempt at being his own DP. And he ended up buying some weird analog lenses that he installed on digital cameras.

This is why the depth of field is so shallow.

A design choice? Or the result of someone not knowing what the fuck their doing?

[Lazlo]

One thing I learned from the RLM video, was this was Zack's first attempt at being his own DP. And he ended up buying some weird analog lenses that he installed on digital cameras.

This is why the depth of field is so shallow.

A design choice? Or the result of someone not knowing what the fuck their doing?

Definitely a stylistic choice, which you can like or not like. It's not a technical rookie mistake and a director working on Snyder's level would know plenty about cameras. There's nothing inherently "analog" about the lens, it all has to do with whether the camera has a mount that accepts the lens, which has been kind of standardized on cinema-level digital cameras to match what film cameras use. Older lenses get used on digital cameras all the time. The same 1960s lenses used on The Hateful Eight (70mm Panavision cameras) were used on Rogue One (Arri Alexa digital cameras). As to the dead pixel issue, I dunno what to chalk that up to, though the Variety article did mention that it has cropped up in other Netflix content, so that speaks to something going wrong in their master delivery process, not Snyder specific. You would definitely catch that in a QC session.

[Spun Lepton]

A friend of mine told me that Grim Street has destroyed my tastes after admitting to him I liked this. Damn.

"I've seen The Soultangler. I can enjoy ANYTHING now."

[Spun Lepton]

OOOOOF, yeah, ok. They even brought up some issues that I'd had while watching it. Think I'm gonna walk back my rating a little.

[Irish]

@Duke totally worth your seeing this as it let me read another fun 1-star Duke review.

@Spun Fuck your friend. Don't walk back anything. Like the man said, "if you enjoyed it, say you enjoyed it." This is the movies, lol, there are no take backs. Don't allow low rent outlets to influence you.

[Dukefrukem]

Definitely a stylistic choice, which you can like or not like. It's not a technical rookie mistake and a director working on Snyder's level would know plenty about cameras. There's nothing inherently "analog" about the lens, it all has to do with whether the camera has a mount that accepts the lens, which has been kind of standardized on cinema-level digital cameras to match what film cameras use. Older lenses get used on digital cameras all the time. The same 1960s lenses used on The Hateful Eight (70mm Panavision cameras) were used on Rogue One (Arri Alexa digital cameras). As to the dead pixel issue, I dunno what to chalk that up to, though the Variety article did mention that it has cropped up in other Netflix content, so that speaks to something going wrong in their master delivery process, not Snyder specific. You would definitely catch that in a QC session.

So do we blame all the dead pixels on Snyder or the Editor or Netlfix? It looks to be CAMERA specific.

[Dukefrukem]

OOOOOF, yeah, ok. They even brought up some issues that I'd had while watching it. Think I'm gonna walk back my rating a little.

It's so funny that I didn't even realize that the person we are supposed to care about saving in this movie, doesn't even get shown in the ending.

Also,

[

Show Spoiler

WTF was going on with those robot zombies????????

] My wife even noticed that while we were watching it and she said something but I blew it off as something else entirely. So +1 for my wife.

[Lazlo]

So do we blame all the dead pixels on Snyder or the Editor or Netlfix? It looks to be CAMERA specific.

Hard to say. If it's something showing up in other Netflix programming, which this Variety article mentions is the case for some users with Extraction, Jupiter's Legacy, and Shadow and Bone, then they have some sort of issue with the gap between how shows are delivered from the production company and then distributed/posted to the platform by Netflix. If it's baked into the deliverable, then that's on the production company for missing it at any number of stages. I just find it really hard to believe that it's something wrong on the production company's side, either with the camera or the edit. The number of highly knowledgable people who lay eyes and hands on these things at the level of detail and resolution that they're working with... someone would see it and fix it before it went out the door. Do mistakes slip through? Yeah, often, but I find it hard to believe that this kind of mistake would slip through.

FWIW, I saw the movie in a theater and didn't notice the pixel issue. Not saying that means anything, I could have just not noticed. But if it isn't showing up in the DCP that goes to theaters and only showing up on Netflix's platform, then it's a Netflix problem, not a Snyder problem.

ETA: https://variety.com/2021/artisans/ne...er-1234980421/

[Wryan]

Missed opportunity to call them zombie pixels and say they were intentional.

[StuSmallz]

Zack Snyder is at his best when his characters have no souls

[Ivan Drago]

:shrug: I had fun with this. There are some tonal issues, especially when it tries to employ a sense of humor, and the film runs a little too long, but Dave Bautista continues to be a great action lead, the makeup/gore effects and action sequences are AWESOME, and it's well directed and shot. Zack Snyder sure loves his rack focuses!

[Ezee E]

I don't have high aspirations for this, so will sort of live post this as it goes... Granted, I started last night, but I got sleepy, so we'll catch up:

-This opening scene is nothing like the first Snyder movie.

-How do these army soldiers not get in any headshots or act like specialized units? And is this a super zombie?

-LONGEST CREDIT SEQUENCE EVER???

went to bed....