Summary

Snyder’s debut feature, the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, turned Romero’s slow-moving ghouls into sprinting nightmares and earned strong critical marks in the mid 70s on Rotten Tomatoes, making it his best reviewed film and the only one to carry a Certified Fresh badge. Wikipedia+1

That film showcased what has become Snyder’s zombie super power:

• Hyper-kinetic action that never loses spatial clarity
• Operatic needle drops (that Johnny Cash opening still hits)
• A sense of large scale doom wrapped in pulp energy

Army of the Dead takes those instincts and dials them into a Vegas fever dream. Compared with the tighter, 100-minute Dawn, this one sprawls to 148 minutes and folds in a heist structure, an “alpha” zombie hierarchy, and franchise seeding. Wikipedia+1

Where Dawn feels lean and relentlessly tense, Army is more of a buffet: zombie tiger, zombie horse, time loop theories, refugee politics, and Oceans Eleven style recruitment all thrown together. Sometimes that abundance is a feature; sometimes it is the movie’s biggest bug.

Story: Vegas, vaults, and alpha zombies 💰☢️

Set after a zombie outbreak has turned Las Vegas into a quarantined no man’s land, the film follows Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), a former war hero now flipping burgers, who is hired by casino boss Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) to retrieve 200 million dollars from a vault under the Strip before the government nukes the city. Rotten Tomatoes

Scott assembles a motley crew:

• Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera), his trusted mechanic and confidant
• Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), a philosophy quoting zombie killer
• Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), an anxious safecracker
• Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro), a deadpan helicopter pilot
• Mikey Guzman (Raúl Castillo) and Chambers (Samantha Win), influencer turned zombie hunters
• The Coyote, Lily (Nora Arnezeder), who knows the routes through the city
• Martin (Garret Dillahunt), Tanaka’s quietly sinister security man
• Burt Cummings (Theo Rossi), a predatory guard who becomes a bargaining chip with the zombies Rotten Tomatoes+1

Scott’s estranged daughter Kate (Ella Purnell) insists on joining to rescue Geeta (Huma Qureshi), a mother trapped in the city. That father daughter arc provides the emotional spine amid the gore and gunfire. Rotten Tomatoes+1

The twist on standard zombie lore is the “alpha” caste, led by Zeus (stunt legend Richard Cetrone) and his queen. They are fast, organized, and almost tribal, turning Las Vegas into their kingdom. It is a fun world-building swing, even if the film never fully explores its implications. Wikipedia

Narratively, Army is strongest in the first hour: the slow infiltration, tense corridor sequences, and clever “zombie hibernation” set piece are terrific. Once the double crosses, emotional beats, and ticking bomb all collide, the film starts to feel overstuffed and occasionally repetitive.

Cast and performances 🎭

Dave Bautista as Scott Ward
Bautista anchors the film with surprising tenderness. He is convincing as both weary warrior and guilt ridden father, and his quiet scenes with Ella Purnell give the movie its heart. Critics often singled him out as one of the film’s strengths. Wikipedia

Ella Purnell as Kate
Purnell sells Kate’s anger and idealism, even when the script pushes her into frustrating decisions. She gives the story a human cost that cuts through the neon carnage. Wikipedia

Matthias Schweighöfer as Dieter
Dieter is the film’s comic MVP. His anxious banter with Vanderohe and wide eyed terror bounce nicely against the brutality around him, enough that he later got his own prequel film, Army of Thieves. Wikipedia+1

Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Nora Arnezeder, Raúl Castillo, Samantha Win
This middle of the ensemble is where the movie quietly shines. Vanderohe’s stoicism, Maria’s warmth, and Lily’s morally ambiguous practicality all add texture. Chambers’ hallway rampage is one of the film’s standout action beats. Rotten Tomatoes+1

Tig Notaro as Marianne Peters
Notaro’s laconic helicopter pilot became a fan favorite, even more impressive given she was digitally composited in to replace Chris D’Elia and often acted opposite no one. Wikipedia+1

If there is a weakness, it is that there are simply too many characters for the film to land every emotional beat. Some deaths hit hard; others feel like boxes checked on a genre bingo card.

Direction and tone: Snyder unleashed 🎬

Snyder directs, co writes, and even serves as his own cinematographer here. Army of the Dead is very much “authored” cinema:

• A bombastic, slow motion heavy opening montage that tells the outbreak’s story in miniature
• Elaborate action choreography that makes good use of corridors, casino floors, and rooftops
• An unapologetic mix of gore, gallows humor, and melodrama

Compared to the ruthless efficiency of Train to Busan or the political chill of 28 Days Later, Army operates like a Vegas show. It is big, loud, and designed more for immediate spectacle than lingering dread. The tradeoff is that when the movie tries to pivot back to sentiment, the tonal whiplash can be real. Rotten Tomatoes Editorial+1

Music: Tom Holkenborg in neon mode 🎧🎲

The score by Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL) leans into synths, distorted percussion, and muscular action cues. It feels like a cousin to his Mad Max: Fury Road and Justice League work, but repainted in fluorescent Vegas colors. Wikipedia+1

Layered over that are on the nose song choices:

• “Viva Las Vegas” transformed into a twisted prologue anthem
• “Zombie” used in a way that is either clever or eye roll inducing depending on your tolerance

Holkenborg’s music does a lot of heavy lifting, especially in the middle stretch where the plot spins its wheels. If anything, you occasionally wish the film would allow the tension to build quietly instead of blasting wall to wall sound.

Cinematography: the dreamy, divisive look 🎥

Snyder shot the movie himself on custom lenses that create an extremely shallow depth of field, intentionally leaving large parts of the frame smeared and out of focus. Wikipedia

On the plus side:

• The zombie kingdom of Vegas feels like a radioactive mirage
• Close ups of faces, weapons, and gore have an almost dreamlike intensity

On the minus side, many viewers and critics found the look distracting, even mistaken it for a streaming compression problem. The style also occasionally clashes with the precise geography you want from a heist film.

That said, when it clicks – like the slow reveal of the zombie tiger or the statuesque alphas on the casino roof – Army delivers pure, heavy metal poster shots. Rotten Tomatoes+1

How it stacks up against other modern zombie greats 🧟‍♂️📊

If you put Army of the Dead on a shelf next to the last two decades of zombie standouts, you get an interesting contrast:

• Dawn of the Dead (2004) sits in the mid to high 70s on Rotten Tomatoes and is widely cited as one of the best remakes in the genre. Wikipedia+1
• Train to Busan (2016) rides a stellar 95 percent score, praised for its emotional core, social commentary, and relentless pacing. Rotten Tomatoes Editorial+1
• World War Z (2013) lives around 67 percent, showing that big budget zombie spectacle can be critically respectable but divisive. Rotten Tomatoes Editorial+1

Army of the Dead lands lower than Train to Busan and roughly in line with World War Z and other mid tier hits. Rotten Tomatoes lists it at 68 percent from critics and 74 percent from audiences, while Metacritic clocks in at 57 out of 100, indicating mixed or average reviews. Rotten Tomatoes+2Wikipedia+2

IMDb user scores float in the low 6s out of 10, and audience tracking service PostTrak reported that 83 percent of viewers rated it positively, suggesting a film that plays better for home audiences than for critics. Facebook+2Wikipedia+2

Within Snyder’s own filmography, many critics called Army his most purely fun work since Dawn of the Dead, even if it lacks that earlier film’s tightness and novelty. Metacritic+1

Our rating breakdown ⭐

• Overall: ★★★☆☆
• Acting: ★★★★☆
• Story: ★★☆☆☆
• Music: ★★★★☆
• Directing: ★★★☆☆
• Cinematography: ★★★★☆

In short: a stylish, overlong, frequently entertaining zombie heist that shows off Snyder’s flair for carnage and color but never quite reaches the genre heights of his own Dawn of the Dead or modern peers like Train to Busan.