PLOT SUMMARY: During a zombie apocalypse, a group of mercenaries head into a quarantine zone to pull off a heist.
You would think that losing some brain functions and becoming sick would make one sluggish and just sit in one corner with drool running down the side of their mouth.
But no, when one turns into a zombie and is infected with a virus, for some reason, they turn into murderous freaks who keep walking on and on looking for their next feed.
And when this dystopian nightmare occurs, quarantine zones are formed, areas are cordoned off, people make sure they go nowhere near the infected.
In Army of the Dead, there are a lot of people who actually want to go inside the red zone; some to steal money, others to save a woman they befriended at camp for those who are quarantined.
But this is a Zack Snyder film and so regardless of the concept and a couple of plot holes, the movie works because it is pure entertainment.
In fact, the very first few minutes of the movie will draw you in.
ARMY OF THE DEAD Movie Plot
A couple who is just married is on a road somewhere in the desert. On the same road, a military convoy is heading to an unknown destination. They are simply following orders and have no idea of what kind of cargo they are transporting.
The couple in the other car get frisky, lose control and crash their car with the military truck.
The sergeant makes a call for help only to be told you stay away from the cargo and make a run for it. In fact, he's told to leave the injured behind. The sergeant can't understand why he can't peek into the cargo that has been compromised. He just wants to take a little peek; after all, he is helping with the transportation.
But the sergeant learns the drawback of being curious as the container opens and a muscular man jumps out and starts attacking and killing everyone.
The sergeant drags along his friend who still hasn't seen the monster and keeps wondering why they are running far into the desert.
His questions are answered when his jaw is ripped off and the sergeant is killed too.
The monster heads to the cliffs to look down at the city of Las Vegas while the new zombies, the sergeant and his friend, join him.
The zombies act fast, infecting a lot of people in a short span of time. Those who held good jobs or were simple folks now have to wield guns to shoot zombies in the head.
The government finally comes up with an idea to form a barricade around the city but it's a little too late and most of the city is ruined.
A lot of people who formed gangs to kill off zombies lose their lives too.
Sometime later, one of them, Scott (who is so muscular one would wonder where he finds time to maintain his structure while keeping his job as a burger flipper) is approached by a casino owner, Tanaka who wants him to gather a crew to steal the $200 million in his vault.
For some reason, Tanaka doesn't want to give him the safe combination, possibly because he uses the same combination for all his other safes, and wants him to hire a safecracker.
Scott gathers his crew in an instant. His friends don't need much persuading, they are being offered what they think is a generous cut. But it isn't really. Scott is being offered 50 million which he wants to split unevenly. His close friends make millions but the others will make in thousands.
Had the others known Scott was a devious fellow, would they want to sacrifice their life for him and the others?
Scott has his crew ready and even has a helicopter mechanic in place because there is a broken down helicopter on the roof of a casino from which the crew can make their escape after they steal the money in small bags.
Tanaka offers no help other than sending in his aide, Martin to go with them. No special transport to the hot zone.
Before the crew can enter the zombie zone, Scott decides to reconnect with his daughter Kate who he thinks distanced herself after her mother got infected and Scott had to stab her in the skull.
Kate is ready to provide transport into the zombie zone because she's a volunteer at the quarantine camp. But she soon decides she wants a piece of the action too when she learns one of her friends went into the zombie zone for some unknown reasons and left her kids behind.
Scott is hesitant at first but then probably thought they would be a great father-daughter duo who takes down zombies and earns millions for it.
The crew head in, ready to shoot zombies in the head and steal millions. A corrupt guard is also taken in just to be offered as a sacrifice so that the alpha zombies will let them through.
Turns out not all zombies are walking around looking for brains. Some of them are smart enough, possibly the result of an experiment that has grouped together and rule the area. There's also a zombie tiger roaming about somewhere.
The crew members are killed one by one, and of course, are betrayed by Martin who tells them that all he really wanted was the queen alpha's head because that was worth more.
So he purposely engages with the queen, has her defeated and then beheads her with a cord.
The helicopter mechanic is throwing around curses and failing at fixing the helicopter while the safecracker is wasting even more time showing everyone how much of a nerd he is, especially to the other muscular guy who grunts and gets antsy when anyone touches his saw.
There are bodies outside the safe and it is implied another team was sent in and they perished. Or the team was simply them because they are wearing the same clothes. This angle isn't fully explored of course.
The character names don't matter too because they are killed off quickly and since they don't come with a back story or a proper introduction, we don't really feel the need to sympathize with them. Besides, it's a zombie movie. How many characters survive zombie attacks?
ARMY OF THE DEAD Ending Explained with Spoilers!
Somewhere along the lines, Kate remembers she wanted to save her friend who should have been dead like anyone who enters the area, but for some reason, the alpha zombie has kept her alive.
More people die, the alpha queen's head is dropped from a tall building and becomes mush.
The alpha is out for revenge because his queen was pregnant with a zombie baby.
The surviving members manage to make it to the helicopter. Kate has managed to get to her friend.
There is also the imminent danger of the area being nuked by orders of the president. The timing is preponed and the crew has very little time to escape.
The helicopter takes off, the alpha jumps and attacks Scott. The alpha is defeated but not before he takes a bite of Scott.
The city is nuked and the helicopter was still in the vicinity so it crashes.
Kate survives because she's wearing a tank top and as per horror movie laws, she is the final girl.
She doesn't bother checking up on anyone and finds Scott who did manage to steal some money because he had dreams to start a food truck business.
He passes off his ideas to his daughter and hands her a bundle of money. Kate doesn't seem too thrilled to follow his dreams but takes the money anyway.
On the other side, the muscular guy who was possessive of his saw manages to steal a bag of money too and can't find his crew members. He walks across the desert, comes to an airport, charters a plane and us enjoying his newfound riches when he has to go to the bathroom.
Only then does he realize that in the midst of all his tattoos, he has been bitten.
For some reason, it's a slow-acting virus because the others were infected pretty quickly. Or maybe because the alpha died, the virus too has become slow because it needs the alpha to infect people faster?
There is no explanation given as to how this character managed to ward off the infection for a long time. Strong immunity, probably.
The movie is definitely entertaining and doesn't drag along considering the length of it. The content, however, needed a bit of polishing.
Scare scale: 3/5
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