Army of the Dead

Director: Zack Snyder
Year Released: 2021
Rating: 2.0

With the city of Las Vegas "walled off" because of a zombie outbreak, casino owner Bly (Hiroyuki Sanada) hires mercenary Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) to assemble a team to break in, survive the horde and swipe $200 million left in his vault (which ends up being a suicide mission for most of them).  While it's not the brightest - or most original - movie in this very popular genre, I suppose Snyder deserves a bit of credit for taking the concept a half-step higher: the undead have become slightly more intelligent and appointed a King and Queen to rule over them (and they can now reproduce!) instead of just being a mindless constantly hungry horde.  That said, it's a little muddy visually (whether by design or not, who knows) and then there's the issue of not "trimming off the fat": Snyder doesn't care to slim down his productions to manageable lengths, and you have to question some of his decisions ... like does he realize the song "Zombie" by The Cranberries is about war in Northern Ireland and has nothing to do with the subject he's covering?  Did he think the effeminate German safe cracker Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer) was funny?  Does he really think about anything except buying old lenses on eBay?