Review: In 'Army of the Dead,' a zombie heist thriller, director Zack Snyder gives in to his worst impulses and creates a bloated, humorless bore

In his latest movie, “Army of the Dead,” director and law-unto-himself Zack Snyder gets back to his roots — a satirical and bloody zombie thriller, like his debut, 2004’s “Dawn of the Dead” — but falls prey to the same narrative bloat and mindless spectacle that hobbled his DC Comics adaptations.

In the near future, America has successfully repelled a zombie infestation, with the few surviving hordes of the undead trapped behind a wall that encircles Las Vegas. (In a lurid prologue, a military convoy leaves Area 51 with a secret cargo — which turns out to be the started zombie. That’s followed with topless zombie showgirls over the opening credits, which seem to go on forever.)

Eventually, the actual plot kicks in, which involves a Japanese billionaire, Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanaka), making an offer to fry cook Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) — who’s no ordinary fry cook, because he’s played by Dave Bautista. Ward is some kind of special ops guy or mercenary or something. What matters is he has a crap-ton of weapons, and knows a lot of people who are equally well-supplied with machine guns.

Tanaka’s offer involves having Ward and his crew — including ace mechanic Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera), the saw-wielding Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick) and gruff helicopter pilot Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro) — walk into Vegas, slip past the zombies, proceed to a basement vault, foil some nasty defensive measures, and crack the safe to retrieve $200 million in untraceable cash. Oh, and do it within 96 hours, before the president nukes Vegas to kill the zombies roaming the Strip.

Ward must add more people to his crew: Lilly (Nora Arnezeder), a coyote who knows the ways into Vegas; Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), an effete safe-cracker; Mikey Guzman (Raúl Castillo), a zombie-killing YouTube sensation, and his pals; and Martin (Garret Dillahunt), who is Tanaka’s security guy and apparently is following a different agenda. And there’s one more: Ward’s estranged daughter, Kate (Ella Purnell), a volunteer at the nearby refugee camp who wants to rescue some women that Lilly took into the zombie-plagued city.

So far, so good, right? A bunch of tough-talking actors chewing up the scenery and shooting every zombie they encounter, making blood fly all over the place in a shower of CGI carnage. There’s even a zombie white tiger patrolling the streets, because Zack Snyder wanted one and producers are finding it increasingly difficult to say no to a director who can call down the wrath of thousands of Twitter-adjacent fanboys.

OK, so the zombie tiger is admittedly cool, as is the social commentary about the brain-dead excess of Las Vegas — a nod to the similar excess of the shopping mall in Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” remake. (It’s also weirdly fascinating to watch Notaro’s performance, which was digitally inserted into every scene during the COVID-19 quarantine when the actor who originally played Peters, Chris D’Elia, was accused of sexual misconduct and became too toxic to keep in the movie.)

So why isn’t “Army of the Dead,” in its mix of “Ocean’s Eleven” plotting and over-the-top zombie gore, more fun than it is? Maybe it’s because Snyder has overloaded the movie with too many characters to keep track of, too many soft-focus views of the crumbling Vegas skyline, and too much wasted effort to make a grandiose epic out of what should be a sleek, speedy action movie.

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‘Army of the Dead’

★★

Opens Friday, May 14, in theaters where open; available Friday, May 21, on Netflix. Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore and language throughout, some sexual content and brief nudity/graphic nudity. Running time: 148 minutes.