Army of the Dead (2021)

IMDb plot summary: Following a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries take the ultimate gamble, venturing into the quarantine zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted.

Directed by Zack Snyder. Starring Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Ana de la Reguera, and Omari Hardwick.

While I really enjoyed the high-energy horror sequences in Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, this one falls a little flat for me. It feels more like watching someone play a video game than anything else. That's not always a bad thing, but here I find it disorienting, like it makes all the character development around it seem like cut scenes -- the kind that are mostly filler until you get to the part where you can actually fight. It undercuts any hope at emotional catharsis and leaves the whole thing feeling a little cold. Dawn of the Dead didn't have much emotional underpinnings either, but the action scenes there at least felt exciting. Here they're dimly lit and edited too fast to really catch what's happening. Overall, disappointing.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Army of the Dead < Fahrenheit 451

Army of the Dead > Firewall

Army of the Dead < Run Lola Run

Army of the Dead < Annie (2014)

Army of the Dead < Don't Look Now

Army of the Dead > The Night of the Hunter

Army of the Dead > The Great Escape

Army of the Dead > The Other Sister

Army of the Dead > Thirteen Conversations About One Thing

Army of the Dead < Definitely, Maybe

Army of the Dead < The Day of the Triffids

Army of the Dead > Zorba the Greek

Final spot: #2440 out of 3388, or 28%.