The zombie action thriller ‘Army of the Dead’ was launched by Netflix last spring where the budget and runtime had to be upstaged’ which was the departure from comic book movies and the start of the horror-comes-back which the director was once good at given the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. More so, it meant that Snyder’s falling out with Warner Bros was a good opportunity for their rival streaming service since they could use Snyder’s vocal, enthusiastic, and active fanbase to promote new franchises and shared universes, something every streaming service likes to have. Sadly, or for better or for worse, Army of Thieves, as it seems at the moment, is not the best evidence supporting that theory because due to the poor adaptation of Army of the Dead came forward this faint history.
This film is a prequel in which we go back six years earlier to the Safecracker and the GotY game that reveled in running, jumping and biting with much more extent on Las Vegas. This particular film is more of a prequel focusing on safecracker Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer also directing, 2017) rather than the entire film revolving around who became the Ludwig Dieter. Cold and bored bank clerk trapped in bureaucracy, who in everyday life posts onto Youtube (generally with quite a few views) his desperately cracking impossibly locked safes, finds himself drawn into a robbery by enchanting Gwen (Nathalie Emmanuel), a hunted antiquities thief who braves a lavish gambit in the middle of the encroaching zombie apocalypse engulfing America. They are great fun together as a chemistry wise duo and one can’t help thinking could they have played this bond out if there was no intervention of the story of connection to Army of the Dead.
In this regard, to avoid beating too much around the bush and being a die-hard Snyder fan, excluding the above mentioned die-hard Snyder fans, it is safe to say that, it is not clear who really is the intended audience for a film like Army of Thieves. It’s not bad enough to be classed as a zombie and satisfying that audience as well, and it’s not bad enough to be classified as a heist and satisfying that audience. What is more deserving of attention, it is an absurdity of a curious sort that appears to realize that the continuity which ‘army of the dead’ managed to create merely five months prior is somehow more epic and/or complex than the reality and as such warrants serious excavation. And it’s just… not.
Schweighofergger’s Dieter is certainly one of the more colorful, and most fascinating of othersky police, so that attention-grabbing prequel sounds awful only at first glance. The man is unstable and has a stout head, which makes it interesting if not classical than the reason of call rescue. However, as we all know, that particular character states in the movie that he has never come across one before, limits some exploration opportunities here.
And so, given the absence of such an attempt in this film or the cut content, we came to this rather light in this world Z up to this point, headonistic retreats look like in Saint Mary of the Dead – rows of hungry mouths quite rapidly devouring the United States with our main garish heads safety drivers Rolph – Guz Khan, hacker si Karina – Ruby O. Fee and bad boy wild card action Brad – Stuart Martin for a heist gone wrong and INTERPOL hot on their heels.
Even at this stage in the writing, with plenty of heist films (and Netflix originals on the subject) already under our belts, the only thing that is left for screenwriter Shay Hatten is to take and go through a checklist of all heist movie clichés and then ridicule cliches of heist movies.
The bulk of the bloodbath is reserved for Dieter’s few dreams involving zombies and what they are going to do to him. Then there is this ending sequence which will be important to fans of Army of the Dead comparing this movie to that one. Snyder’s signature stylistic template is clearly visible, although this time he only produced the movie and Schweighöfer directed it, however, she stepped into the production with authority. There is an exhilarating nutty quality to some of the scenes that makes me wish he would helm a movie that is a lot more mature and not so dependent on links to other movies.
The Verdict
There is an enthusiasm here, but the main obstacles for Army of Thieves are the muddled mixture of horror and heist stories while not clearly defining a target audience apart from the dedicated fans of Zack Snyder. Building upon an existing story through the before-during-after structure of a zombie apocalypse is a good idea though, Snyder’s Army of the Dead may simply not be the best place to do so as the lores are not very rich. As a piece of disposable entertainment it did the trick just fine, but then perhaps it is the intention of the creators to take on more than this army is capable of – establishing and brandishingos crown – a listener with a diversity of prequels and sequels.
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