Despite the mixed reviews it's received, Zack Snyder's large-scale Netflix zombie movie, Army of the Dead, remains a fun, ferocious, and thrilling exemplar of mass entertainment for casual and horror fans alike to enjoy.
Packed with action-packed escapism, the film tracks a unit of mercenaries hired to steal $50 million from a casino vault Although the film has a slew of scary zombies and brutal death scenes, it also comes with a host of plot holes that don't make much sense.
Misleading Title
The title Army of the Dead is rather misleading. The opening of the film shows a military unit transporting Zeus (Richard Centrone) from Area 51, and he is presumably the zombie patient zero. After ravaging the soldiers and looking over the bright lights of Vegas as their target, the zombified army disappears from the film entirely.
The implication is that Zeus leads the zombie soldiers into Las Vegas and they infect the population. However, there are no military zombies to be found in the film. Zeus and his Queen (Athena Perample) rule the zombie kingdom as royals, not soldiers. A more accurate title might have been Sin City of the Dead.
Casino Heist
A giant McGuffin if ever there was one, the casino heist in Army of the Dead was 100% superfluous. When Martin (Garret Dillahunt) reveals his boss's dastardly plan to obtain the Queen's zombie blood, the need to liberate $50 million from the Olympus vault becomes entirely pointless.
Considering how the Queen's head is valued at roughly $200 million, there's absolutely no need to obtain the additional $50 million from the casino. The whole movie could have been truncated if Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) ordered his men to capture the Queen's head upfront rather than send them on a fool's errand.
Dieter's Involvement
Dovetailing from the senseless casino heist is the unnecessary presence of Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighofer), the skilled safecracker who the mercenaries depend on to procure the $50 million. Despite being the most likable character, his role is utterly unnecessary.
Considering how the Olympus Casino is owned by Tanaka in the first place, the supposed need to crack a safe when he already should already have access to the key codes seems strange. Tanaka could have simply saved precious time in the face of an imminent nuclear attack to grant the team access to the vault at the beginning. The simplicity of the vault's design and ease with which the team carries out the cash also raises an eyebrow.
Not A Single Silencer
The rabid zombies in Army of the Dead often hunt by sound, dispatching large hordes of the undead on noisy explosions, yelping screams, and whizzing machine-gun bullets. Given how tactically trained Scott and his crew seem to be, it seems odd that none would equip their arsenal with any sort of silencer or sound suppressor.
One of the few characters to not wield a firearm is Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), who instead stands out with a gigantic circular saw he keeps on his shoulder. The saw also makes a loud revving noise, which further imperils his team.
Kate's Decision Making
Although her heart is in the right place, Kate's (Ella Purnell) selfish decision-making doesn't make much sense in of what's best for her father, Scott, and the loyal team of mercenaries protecting her life. With 20 minutes left until a nuclear shell eradicates Vegas, Kate disobeys her father and ditches the crew to rescue her friend Geeta. She sacrifices many for the sake of one at the worst time possible.
As a result, Scott and the team are forced to stay behind to ensure Kate's safety. This allows Zeus enough time to reach the roof, kill Lilly (Nora Arnezeder), and crash the chopper, killing Geeta (Huma Qureshi) and Peters (Tig Notaro) in the process.
Geeta's Sudden Disappearance
Speaking of Geeta's fate, her sudden disappearance after boarding the chopper is one of the more head-scratching plot holes in the film, especially given the importance of the character in the eyes of Kate.
After Kate goes through painstaking efforts to save Geeta and sacrifices Scott, Peters, and Lilly in the process, Geeta suddenly vanishes. Scott infers Geeta died in the helicopter crash when he insists on giving her cut of the money to Geeta's children.
Zombie Pregnancy
While Snyder introduced a zombie fetus in his 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake, he has not publicly explained how a decrepit zombie could get pregnant, much less give birth, in the intervening 17 years.
After Martin decapitates The Queen, Zeus retrieves her corpse and excises their unborn zombie fetus from her womb. While this is meant to conjure sympathy in the villain and establish his vengeful motive, the notion of a dead human being giving birth to a living undead baby is quite a stretch.
Robot Zombies
Although their presence could be addressed in the two purported prequels - Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas - the mystifying inclusion of zombie robots in the film continues to raise more questions than provide answers.
While never directly mentioned in the film, a clear race of metallic-faced, glowing blue-eyed zombie-bots is present on the casino floor. The discovery has sent internet speculators to run rampant with wild theories and potential tie-ins.
Nuclear Radiation
At the beginning of the film, a news report refers to the nuclear bomb set to be dropped on Vegas has a low-yield explosion. However, given the size of the blast and concomitant gas cloud, it seems unlikely that the surviving characters would avoid absorbing deadly radiation.
After shooting her infected father a short distance from the blast site, Kate would almost certainly be irradiated with harmful nuclear energy. The same goes for Vanderohe, who did not wait for the radiation to clear before escaping the vault and heading to a Utah airport.
Ticking Clock Urgency
One of the biggest question marks in the film is why the characters do not act with more urgency considering the imminent nuclear attack. The closer the bomb gets to being dropped on the city, the slower the team acts, and the more time they take to engage in leisurely conversations.
Once the team learns the nuclear bomb will hit Vegas in 90 minutes instead of 24 hours, they show a level of casual nonurgency that makes very little sense in the situation. Between this and Vanderohe's cryptic reference to a possible time loop, the chronology in Army of the Dead leaves the audience scratching their heads.
