Mr. Movie: Take a gamble on ‘Army of the Dead’

Army of the Dead

Somewhere in the future a different kind of zombie gets loose in Las Vegas. Instead of blankly staring at slot machines, these zombies shuffle along and are deadly killers. They’ve wiped out so many humans that the place is walled-off and is now called Lost Vegas.

At one time, Dave Bautista’s Scott Ward was an ace zombie killer. He now flips burgers in a restaurant on the edge of the city. How the mighty have fallen. The why doesn’t matter and it didn’t matter to a bazillionaire who left millions in a vault deep inside a Vegas hotel.

Knowing Ward is the best zombie fighter of them all, and though he’s already collected the insurance on the money, he wants some of it back. The guy offers Ward a big cut of the pie if he’ll put together a team to go in after the loot.

To accomplish the task, the team has to go deep into zombie territory. Since it’s Vegas, doubling down comes into play and a decision by Congress to nuke the place makes going there an even bigger gamble. To collect the payoff, they have to get the job done and get out quickly.

Predictably, things go wrong leading to a nail-biter finish.

Over the last few years moviemakers have evolved zombies from brainless brain eaters to some of them having intelligence. Some zombies have evolved superpowers and can move at very fast speeds. Some do a kind of hibernation. Others are just ordinary old zombies.

That means the cards in the deck are not stacked in favor of Ward’s team. Knowing all that, most horror film fans know where everything is headed and could even write the script.

Co-writer/director Zach Snyder — doing his second zombie flick — surrounds Bautista with formidable-looking co-stars. They battle baddies alive and dead while dashing off perfectly-timed zingers. Some do their duty and die-in-the-order-of-importance-to-the-plot.

Again, and like noted earlier, most zombie fans can pretty much write this script themselves.

That doesn’t mean the movie isn’t fun. Though much longer than need be, “Army of the Dead” is a blast and is perfectly suited for Bautista’s improving acting skills. Though his size and looks limit the roles he can play, the Uber-charismatic Bautista gets better with every movie.

Zombie movies are fun and — sometimes — relatable. Everywhere these days we see bleary-eyed people in masks shuffling along in a near zombie-like state struggling to get through the pandemic. So unlike other horror movie characters, you can almost buy the concept.

Snyder’s film is better than “Dawn of the Dead,” his 2004 effort that had people stuck in a mall full of zombies movie, and it is tons better than the D.C. Comics, Justice League, Superman-Batman flicks he did a few years back.

Plunk a buck or two your local box-office slot machine. “Army of the Dead” is definitely worth a gamble.

▪ Rated R for blood and gore, violence, language, nudity and mature themes. It’s playing at the AMC Classic Kennewick 12, the Fairchild Cinemas Queensgate 12, Southgate 10 and Pasco theater.

▪ Rating: 4 out of 5

Spiral: From the Book of Saw

I don’t keep up with these things, but apparently there’s a Book of Saw. At least the producers and creators of “Spiral” say so. When I saw the original film back in 2004, I predicted more movies and a chain saw franchise. I suppose, somewhere, someone has put pen to paper and has written a book or two based on the movie and its protagonist, John Kramer.

I’m getting lazy and don’t really care enough to check. None of that matters, anyway, book or no book, “Spiral: From the Book of Saw” is a movie and is the 9th movie in the series.

I only saw the first three in the franchise. They didn’t screen any of the others for critics in my area. Just as well, the chop-and-slash flicks don’t work for me at all, and neither one, two or three are worth a cut of anyone’s time.

I’m assume the same goes for versions four through eight.

This one stars Chris Rock. Hmmmmm. Really? That’s interesting. How does someone of Rock’s star caliber end up in this kind of a movie? Just as interesting, someone talked Samuel L. Jackson into taking a small part.

And the story evolved from an idea Rock developed? Even more interesting.

By now you’re thinking “Spiral” might be a comedy. Horror and comedy are a good mix. A lot of humor — for some reason — often makes the unbelievable, believable. Unfortunately, outside of a couple of poorly written comedy rambles, “Spiral” isn’t that funny.

By Saw standards the movie is different but not necessarily better. And though Rock is in the movie, you’re not necessarily going to end up laughing your sides off.

Rock is Det. Zeke Banks. He’s a super-straight cop and is not all that popular on the force. Banks and his rookie partner investigate the murder of a cop. He’s killed in copy-cat Saw style. Then another cop is killed. A recorded message is left at the scene of each crime by a hooded man wearing a pig mask.

No one misses the jab as the killer explains to Banks that he’s only killing crooked cops.

Rock does a lot of shouting in his high, squeaky voice. The stentorian style makes him almost convincing as a cop. The limitation is his delivery. It’s — no pun intended — horrifying. In this role — and in other acting parts — Rock’s lines are not delivered much differently than he does in one of his comedy routines. It’s distracting.

Instead of focusing on his character and the character’s actions, you keep waiting for a punch line.

“Spiral” is written by Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger. They penned the 8th Saw movie, “Jigsaw.” Their movie isn’t bad. It’s not quite as bloody graphic as I remember the first three films to be, but it’s still graphic enough to be a Saw movie.

To his credit, director Darren Lynn Bousman who did “Saw II,” “Saw III” and “Saw IV,” keeps his movie moving. What he, Rock and the two writers don’t offer is any surprises or — other than curiosity about Rock — any real reason to shell out box-office money to see more of the same.

For those of you curious enough to do this one, and for fans of the franchise, this one combines chop and slash with a dash of comedy and some horror. It’s good but it’s also not horrible. Rock isn’t too bad in the lead role, it has a decent supporting cast and — fortunately — it runs just a few minutes over 90-minutes.

The bad news? Bousman, Stolberg, Goldfinger, Rock and the producers leave room for a sequel. It looks like they have set another, and very unnecessary chain saw into motion. With box office success, “Spiral” could have Saw, once again, spiraling out of control.

▪ Rating R for blood, gore, violence and language. It’s playing at the Fairchild Cinemas Queensgate 12, Southgate 10 and Pasco theater and at the AMC Classic Kennewick 12.

▪ Rating: 3 out of 5

This story was originally published May 13, 2021 at 7:20 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie: Take a gamble on ‘Army of the Dead’."