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re: Zack Snyder’s 'Army of the Dead' Tomatometer & Spoiler Thread

Posted on 5/22/21 at 12:02 am to
Posted by Fewer Kilometers
Baton Rouge
Member since Dec 2007
36087 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 12:02 am to
Man. Kicks off with Richard Cheese singing. Perfect. :)
Posted by LSUZombie
A Cemetery Near You
Member since Apr 2008
28912 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 12:18 am to
quote:

Man. Kicks off with Richard Cheese singing. Perfect. :)


A nice call back to his singing in 2004 Dawn of the Dead
Posted by EuphoricSSP
Member since Feb 2021
822 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 1:02 am to
He loves the song covers and the rack focus so much
Posted by jmarto1
Houma, LA/ Las Vegas, NV
Member since Mar 2008
34035 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 1:04 am to
quote:

Lol. Did that ancient arse (caddie I think? Maybe a Buick?) really take out a military tractor trailer and cause a TNT level explosion?


We have more security for transporting nukes than they had for that
Posted by Jay Are
Baton Rouge
Member since Nov 2014
4851 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 1:34 am to
Most I've enjoyed a Snyder movie since Dawn. Still had a ton I didn't care for.

Anyone have a good explanation for why he filmed this whole thing in iPhone's portrait mode?
Posted by Tiger Voodoo
Champs 03 07 09 11(fack) 19!!!
Member since Mar 2007
21787 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 7:04 am to
quote:

Were the two main zombies from the beginning and throughout the movie the same thing? The first one looked way different and seemed way faster and strong in the opening scene.



I was coming to ask this as well, I don’t think so.

I’m pretty sure the king they were dealing with was the main military guy in the convoy at the beginning (that actor played Jimmy Olsen in BvS).


That would mean the true alpha likely had already escaped the city and was still on the loose. Speaking of, where the frick were they supposed to be bringing that thing anyway


Agree with someone else that the “alphas” were a good addition to the walking dead type zombies that made things more interesting and upped the difficulty without making it seem impossible to beat them all. We’ve seen that type of hierarchy in vampire stories recently.


Yeah it took a while to get started but with a cast as big as that getting a little backstory for all the characters and getting them gathered and ready to go was going to take some time. I found them all pretty interesting and funny so I didn’t mind the interactions leading up to the mission.

Vanderhoe, Dieter, and Mikey were particularly enjoyable characters and the helicopter pilot is always funny in her roles.

The only thing that should have been cut was the stupid daughter going to look for the random mom

That was terrible but honestly the whole storyline may have added 15 minutes tops (like five of which was her and Bautista arguing about whether she could go or not )


I agree that the heist aspect was kind of overblown, although the vault scene was fun. It was more like a rescue mission vs actually plotting how to get the loot a la Oceans.

Other than that this was fun, funny, and the world created looked pretty badass imo.


Soundtrack was awesome, Cranberries


SPOILERS:











Best death had to be Maria, did NOT see that coming
This post was edited on 5/22/21 at 7:20 am
Posted by 7thWardTo314
Member since May 2017
1284 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 10:38 am to
Watched it last night. Highly enjoyable to me.
Posted by Peter167
Member since Mar 2020
6097 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 10:39 am to
Literally about to watch
Posted by Sl0thstronautEsq
Antarctica
Member since Aug 2018
9271 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 10:44 am to
quote:

Did I see a robot zombie? The ones with blue, glowing eyes. It got it's face shot off and it looked metal and was sparking


Yes! Wtf was that!?

ETA: Like others mentioned, I thought it was about 30min too long and the whole daughter/rescue mission plot was completely unnecessary.

ETA 2: I actually think the opening credit sequence was my favorite part of the movie
This post was edited on 5/22/21 at 12:35 pm
Posted by wildtigercat93
Member since Jul 2011
112354 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 10:49 am to
quote:

Yeah it took a while to get started but with a cast as big as that getting a little backstory for all the characters and getting them gathered and ready to go was going to take some time


But they don’t really don’t have to

For one, it’s a zombie heist movie. Their motivations should be pretty clear even if there were zero back story created for them. Especially since (vague spoilers here), it all meant nothing really given the way it ended

ETA actually calling it a zombie heist movie seems a bit unfair. It’s a zombie movie with a bank vault involved in the plot. Not really much Heisting as others have mentioned. Original point is the same
This post was edited on 5/22/21 at 10:51 am
Posted by Athos
Member since Sep 2016
11878 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 11:28 am to
It goes back to the complaints of TV and Movies Thread. Snyder telling too much rather than showing but in a different vein.

Would have been far better just dropping into the plot immediately. Hell. A heist movie that turns into a “escape the zombies we weren’t aware of” would have been better.

Zach can’t help himself trying to cram too much shite into a film though.
Posted by Tiger Voodoo
Champs 03 07 09 11(fack) 19!!!
Member since Mar 2007
21787 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 11:36 am to
quote:

But they don’t really don’t have to



Well obviously they don’t have to, but starting with a bunch of random people saying ok let’s go get that money isn’t exactly the best way to tell a story either


They basically spent 2-3 minutes on each of the group members, that’s over 20 minutes right there, and it was obviously several more minutes for Bautista and the daughter (not to mention the random mom she was searching for). After the intro snd credits plus the brief meet with Tanaka and the bit about the incoming nuke that puts it right about 45 minutes or so when they actually go into the city.

I didn’t think it felt dragged out, and all those little intros had a point so to me I didn’t mind it. I know some people just want to get to the gore and that’s fine, I just don’t mind getting acclimated to each of the characters for a quick scene. Especially because the intro scene and the credits should have provided enough gore for a bit of exposition.

I mean heaven forbid we have a bit of a story with our bloody popcorn


Like I said do think the whole daughter character and story should have been cut. It really added nothing and was just contrived bullshite with the random missing mom.

Bautista struggling with what happened with his wife and moving on with Maria was enough to attempt to put some emotion in the story.

Cut out that character and her arc and that’s probably close to 20 minutes and makes it a much tighter story with pretty much no effect on the main conflict imo.


quote:

Especially since (vague spoilers here), it all meant nothing really given the way it ended



Fair enough


quote:

ETA actually calling it a zombie heist movie seems a bit unfair. It’s a zombie movie with a bank vault involved in the plot.



Yeah agreed, I mentioned it’s more of a rescue story than a heist. Deiter needed his moment though :lol:
This post was edited on 5/22/21 at 11:52 am
Posted by wildtigercat93
Member since Jul 2011
112354 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 12:03 pm to
quote:

Well obviously they don’t have to, but starting with a bunch of random people saying ok let’s go get that money isn’t exactly the best way to tell a story either



For this specific type of movie? It would’ve been a remarkable improvement to the quality of the film.

We have no preconceived notions of these characters, and clearly the characters are disposable so why waste all the time trying to explain their life story? Zombies are as obvious of a foe as you can create in a story, you don’t really need any more motivation than survival (or this case money) to make an excuse for why it’s happening. The audience bought into the set up the second they turned the movie on.

quote:

They basically spent 2-3 minutes on each of the group members, that’s over 20 minutes right there, and it was obviously several more minutes for Bautista and the daughter (not to mention the random mom she was searching for). After the intro snd credits plus the brief meet with Tanaka and the bit about the incoming nuke that puts it right about 45 minutes or so when they actually go into the city.


I think you could’ve gotten away with 20 minutes of montages to build your story, or 20 minutes of exposition scenes to build your story. They wanted both and it just felt so unnecessary and boring

That long credits scene told me everything and more I needed to know about the characters in a zombie movie. Cut the rest.

quote:

I mean heaven forbid we have a bit of a story with our bloody popcorn


Feel free to interject plot lines into a popcorn movie, but whenever all the added plot lines do is inflate the run time and lull the viewer to sleep until the next action scene, it’s not a useful addition to the movie. It’s just wasted motion and time.

quote:

Bautista struggling with what happened with his wife and moving on with Maria was enough to attempt to put some emotion in the story.


And they could’ve conveyed that in atleast half the amount of screen time it did.

ETA I’m glad you enjoyed the movie, not trying to shite on that. I enjoyed it in parts as well. I just think if it had a better idea of what it was or what it wanted to be, the movie would be infinitely better. And that’s a problem a lot of action movies have these days
This post was edited on 5/22/21 at 12:05 pm
Posted by RLDSC FAN
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Member since Nov 2008
51687 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 12:21 pm to
quote:

Like others mentioned, I thought it was about 30min too long and the whole daughter/rescue mission plot was completely unnecessary.



I agree that the daughter's storyline could've been cut (easily the worst character) but I had no problem with the runtime. I usually do with Snyder’s films, but this one flew by for me.
This post was edited on 5/22/21 at 12:26 pm
Posted by Tiger Voodoo
Champs 03 07 09 11(fack) 19!!!
Member since Mar 2007
21787 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 12:26 pm to
quote:

For this specific type of movie? It would’ve been a remarkable improvement to the quality of the film



Different strokes, I suppose. I personally didn’t mind the setup



quote:

I think you could’ve gotten away with 20 minutes of montages to build your story, or 20 minutes of exposition scenes to build your story. They wanted both and it just felt so unnecessary and boring



That’s fair. Like I said I wasn’t bored but for this type of movie I get that a lot of the viewers definitely just want to get to the action.


I do think the whole thing would have felt different if everything stayed the same but the daughter didn’t exist.

Cut that shite out and all the other exposition feels a lot more fun I’d think. She was just a drag.



quote:

I’m glad you enjoyed the movie, not trying to shite on that. I enjoyed it in parts as well. I just think if it had a better idea of what it was or what it wanted to be, the movie would be infinitely better. And that’s a problem a lot of action movies have these days



Nah all good man I get it.


I might have felt differently if we weren’t still in Covid movie purgatory. With so little content coming out for so long I’m happy to digest all the content and story I can for as long as I can

With a high production quality like this I guess I’ll deal with some excess from the director because WTF is the hurry when there’s nothing else coming down the pipe anytime soon


I enjoyed the ride and thought the characters were all pretty cool. Didn’t mind getting to know them a bit
This post was edited on 5/22/21 at 12:27 pm
Posted by Sgt_Lincoln_Osiris
Baton Rouge
Member since Dec 2014
1077 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 12:29 pm to
quote:

Did I see a robot zombie? The ones with blue, glowing eyes. It got it's face shot off and it looked metal and was sparking


We saw it too and rewound to confirm a metal face with blue eyes. Made me think back to Vanderohe telling the locksmith that the previous failed teams were themselves on different attempts.

I figured this would be a video game or some weird Westworld, because why else would the previous dead team members be wearing the same clothes/necklaces?
Posted by Sl0thstronautEsq
Antarctica
Member since Aug 2018
9271 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 12:37 pm to
quote:

Made me think back to Vanderohe telling the locksmith that the previous failed teams were themselves on different attempts.


Yeah, WTF was that!? I love time loop movies and that was such a weird, random sequence in the movie. But then they just dropped it and moved on
This post was edited on 5/22/21 at 12:37 pm
Posted by RLDSC FAN
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Member since Nov 2008
51687 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 12:47 pm to
quote:

Well obviously they don’t have to, but starting with a bunch of random people saying ok let’s go get that money isn’t exactly the best way to tell a story either



Had Snyder done that, this board would be complaining "we don't know anything about these characters!!"
Posted by wildtigercat93
Member since Jul 2011
112354 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 12:54 pm to
quote:

Had Snyder done that, this board would be complaining "we don't know anything about these characters!!"


They were proven to be disposable characters so no one would’ve really cared or had this complaint

They should’ve kept it as simple as Those Who Wish Me Dead did.

I don’t buy your premise that people would’ve been clamoring for more exposition scenes instead of more actual zombie action or heist plot
This post was edited on 5/22/21 at 12:55 pm
Posted by lsutigersFTW
Lafayette
Member since Jun 2008
7354 posts
Posted on 5/22/21 at 12:54 pm to
I’ve seen this mentioned somewhere else, and I agree, and I want to see if anybody else saw this or think the same. At the beginning of the movie, when they were showing how Vegas got overtaken, was that WWE Hall of Famer JBL playing the role of that military guy who got swamped on top of the tank as he set off that blue smoke flare? Maybe he is good buddies with Big Dave, who talked Snyder into giving him that tiny role.

If that wasn’t JBL, that was his identical twin brother
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