Army of the Dead

“The fact that Tig Notaro was cast only because a male sex offender was ‘found out’ slightly dampens the inclusiveness of Army of the Dead.”

Title: Army of the Dead (2021)
Director: Zack Snyder 👨🏼🇺🇸
Writers: Joby Harold 👨🏼🇺🇸, Shay Hatten 👨🏼🇺🇸, and Zack Snyder 👨🏼🇺🇸

Reviewed by Alicja Johnson 👩🏼🇺🇸

—SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 3/5

Following an outbreak that leaves the undead contained in the city of Las Vegas, a casino owner hires mercenary Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) to recover $200 million from his zombie-infested venue. Such is the premise of Netflix’s new movie, Army of the Dead, which draws heavily from heist genre favorites like Ocean’s Eleven (2001). From the 11-person team Scott assembles to the Sin City backdrop, the first act of the film relentlessly pulls from the 2001 movie. But Army of the Dead fails to replicate the staying power of its muse.

Though the idea behind Snyder’s story holds promise, the final product disappoints in two key areas: character development and tone. After all, if viewers are to care whether or not this rag-tag team succeeds in their suicide mission, we must feel connected to the characters. The writers attempt to address this through Scott and his estranged daughter, Kate (Ella Purnell), but their bare-bones characterization hardly satisfies.

As for tone, the opening credits’ neon pink letters, which hover over a campy montage of Las Vegas under siege by zombies, suggests we’re in for a fun time. But the vibe quickly shifts to a sober tenor that feels like a letdown. The story also suffers from some gaping plot holes, which are hard to ignore when the movie becomes so self-serious. Overall, it seems the creators couldn’t decide what type of film to make.

Gender: 4.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

The leading lady in 1968’s Night of the Living Dead—grandfather of the modern zombie blockbuster—has only two contributions to the action: screaming, or staring blankly in catatonic shock. Gender representation in undead cinema has come a long way since then, but it’s still far from ideal. Army of the Dead exemplifies this, including several badass female characters in its zombie-killing squad while still succumbing to some frustrating pitfalls.

First, the good: Most of these characters, including Lily (Nora Arnezeder), Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera), and Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro), are tapped to join Scott’s extraction team on merit. Each one has a mission-critical skill, like Lily’s unmatched knowledge of navigating the Las Vegas quarantine zone or Marianne’s ability to fix and pilot a broken-down helicopter. The fact that women are needed to advance the story already makes Snyder’s latest outperform most action movies that come before it.

However, Notaro’s unflappable Marianne wasn’t originally intended to be a woman in the movie. The actor digitally replaced a male comedian who shot the role before allegations about his predatory sexual behavior came to light. On one hand, it’s laudable that Netflix invested millions of dollars to scrub an abuser from the movie’s cast. But on the other hand, the fact that the pilot character is female only because a sex offender was “found out” slightly dampens Army of the Dead’s overall gender representation.

Another bone to pick: The writers choose to “fridge” not one, but two different female players, using their deaths to further the plot. We learn through flashback that Scott killed his own wife as she was becoming a zombie, which led to his strained relationship with his daughter Kate. Across enemy lines, when a member of the heist team murders The Queen of the Alpha Zombies (Athena Perample), Snyder makes a big fanfare of her husband (Richard Cerone) taking her death as a reason to wage war against the human trespassers. Yes, sometimes you gotta kill off one character to motivate another—but wives so often take on this burden that yours truly owns a t-shirt making fun of the trope. And when it happens twice in the same film...well, it says a lot about how expendable the creators view married women.

For what it’s worth, Army of the Dead subverts enough gender-related action tropes to let us forgive its excessive wife murders. For instance, costumes put practicality first, as opposed to sexualizing the women wearing them. Or consider that every female character gets a real weapon—not a household item like a frying pan—to defend herself. It’s choices like these that show they’re here to kick zombie butt, and not to play second fiddle to their male counterparts.

Race: 4.5/5

The main cast of Army of the Dead easily reflects the racial diversity of the United States. Bautista, the grandson of Filipino immigrants, gets the most attention and backstory as Scott, while Black actor Omari Hardwick particularly shines as Vanderohe, a soldier who joins the heist team.

Though no one gets much character development in this story, it does feel like when the writers try to add dimension, it’s with characters of color. A minor example is the way that Maria and expert marksman Mikey Guzman—respectively played by Mexican de la Reguera and Mexican American Raúl Castillo—slip into Spanish with one another. Showing American residents interacting in a language other than English can help normalize multilingualism. It may sound like small potatoes, but it actually matters a lot: 40% of Latinx in the United States have faced harassment in one form or another, including verbal attacks for speaking Spanish.

But alas, the all-white producers made no effort to hire diverse talent for the key production team, including the composer, the film editor, and the casting directors, among other creative roles. Just a friendly reminder to Hollywood: We need to diversify both on and off camera for true inclusion.

Mediaversity Grade: B 4.00/5

For an all-around mediocre movie, Army of the Dead fares surprisingly well with representation. Nonetheless, a totally white leadership team keeps the film from reaching genuine inclusiveness.

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Grade: BLiMay 31, 2021