In general I’m very “Well I guess” about Zack Snyder. I really really dig Dawn of the Dead and the 300 might firmly have fallen into a version of “My jam" so complete I’d have a copy of it entombed with me if it wasn’t you know, so violently racist, and full of eurocentric propaganda. Man of Steel has some really good ideas and at times some amazing visuals but it’s also a mess, and Justice League feels like a movie made for Bros who once audited a philosophy class. I have nothing to say about Sucker Punch except that it’s a great film, and terribly misunderstood, The Watchmen gets worse everytime I see it, but I did like it alot when it came out, and I have no idea wtf the Guardians of Ga'Hoole is or was. So,now we arrive at his latest venture “Army of the Dead”, a movie that finds itself maybe just left of the center of Snyders strengths and weaknesses. In the corner of strengths I found the movie extremely likeable. One thing I’ll give Snyder is that in the realm he works in, he makes likeable distinctive if not tropish characters, he has a bit of Shane Black in him in that way. He also (in concert with whomever is his casting director) cast very well. Each actor felt married to their character in way that teetered on symbiotic. He’s pretty good at action, pretty good at visuals and though I don’t think him a great world builder, he is pretty good at that too. When he brings it back down to somewhat real world, Snyder has the ability to make passable waves at emotional and political depth. A scene between Dave Bautista ( Scott Ward ) and Ella Purnell ( Playing his daughter Kate ) illustrates that exact point. Aspects of the very plot itself illustrate the political, BUT Snyder is too much of an addict to cool to truly mine anything for depth. In places where he’s found it ( Sucker Punch ) for example it feels happenstance rather than purposeful. That emotional scene between father and daughter works more in a vacuum than in the entirety of the movie, because it’s actually too good for the movies aims, and it’s somewhat forced. Issues that deep wouldn't find themselves weakened that quickly. Walls take a considerable amount of time to come down, trust time to build, and Snyder as a storyteller is both visually, and by word always on the move. Snyder's coke buzz like movement of camera, arc, and themes turns any depth into cinematic platitudes. He has a very short attention span, and he doesn’t like to finish things properly. Your themes in a movie, need reinforcing, repeating, to stick and truly find their depth. Snyder introduces things and then it’s seems he finds another idea more interesting, so that child (quite literally in this movie is left behind for dead ). There’s ideas that point to this movie being about consumption, avarice, and a lack of connection but nothing sticks, it’s all unfinished. This movie, so readily a love letter to James Cameron’s seminal action-horror classic “Aliens” doesn’t stick the landing on the things that made that movie great. Take the underrated Garret Dillahunt in a role unmissably designed to be like Paul Reisers “Carter Burke"in Aliens….on roids. Dillahunt's Martin ends up costing members their lives in very similar fashion ( See a locked door ), he is an industry plant just like Burke. Problem is that in Aliens it is through constant reinforcing and repetition we see Carter Burkes connection as an agent of the will of The Weyland-Yutani Corp. I don’t even remember what the Corp in Army of the Dead was and I just watched it, but I do remember Hiroyuki Sanada sending him, (even while their connection is also underdeveloped even as a subtle matter) which leaves it to feel more individualized, than institutional or even just corporatized, nevermind that Dillahunts character this time is made one of the “Marines" per say, and that his movements seem fairly self involved, and not distinctively as the animated consequence of the corporation. Reisers language, phrasing, - “It was a bad call”, appeals to solidarity- “I work for the company. But don't let that fool you, I'm really an okay guy. I'm glad to see you're feeling a little better”, his responses, all feel like that of a man regurgitating years of trained company speak. It acts as the underbedding for the foundation of a an extremely well done action film explicitly and implicitly about the extension and limitations of corporate greed. Snyder is way too concerned with how awesome it would be to have a totally ripped Zombie King, to even care to explain why a Zombie whose body probably consumed so much energy at such an accelerated rate would end up with such muscle mass, to be concerned with properly upholding themes. Tigers, pregnancy, the nature or reasoning behind the formation of a Zombie hierarchy, these are a few things Snyder rejects because the idea is “Hey it looks cool”, and you know what..it does. Yet, he at at same time adds these songs like a slowed down version of “Viva Las Vegas" playing over the carnage and emotional vibrancy of people losing their loved ones, and intensified lust for flesh, emotional beats that are meant to push home more serious suggestions, and add more unearned gravitas, so you end up with a movie that both understands itself and wants to be more than it is, and that’s the nature of many of Snyder's movies. It paints the portrait a man who seems to want so badly to be Renoir and Renny Harlin, and rarely figures out the right chemistry for both. Its fun and it's empty, and it’s predecessors Aliens, Predator, understood and embraced the fact that they were empty calories running on the most curated of sugar coated fumes, which in turn created depth. In acceptance of self, of identity we find our depth, this is true with people as it is with film, it is Snyder's unwillingness to accept what his movies are even while believing he has that gives his movies their sense of silly granduer, and foolish pride.. fun films that’s still try too hard.. “That was bad, but still..fun movie though” is the calling card for Snyder films, and though better footing is found, Army of the Dead is another example.
