Army of the Dead

Gone are the lumbering, passive zombies we’ve been seeing on screens for the last half-century. The menacing mutant bloodsuckers who populate Army of the Dead are like pumped-up mutant cannibals on steroids.

This epic dystopian thriller from director Zack Snyder (Justice League) is a visually dazzling but also rambling and self-indulgent return to his cinematic roots. However, lacking the narrative dexterity to navigate its multilayered concept, it settles for action-hero tropes instead.

A well-crafted opening sequence lays the chilling groundwork, depicting the fiery crash of an armored vehicle in the desert near Area 51. The top-secret cargo is more than the oblivious drivers can handle.

One montage later, Las Vegas has been reduced to rubble by an invasion of genetically enhanced zombies. The city has been walled off and earmarked for annihilation by a nuclear bomb in a last-ditch government attempt to stop the spread.

As the clock ticks for the locals to escape, a greedy casino owner (Hiroyuki Sanada) assembles a team of ragtag rogues to save Sin City from impending doom — just long enough to pull off a massive heist on the way out of town.

This diverse collection of brains and brawn is led by an ex-military operative (Dave Bautista) now working as a fry cook, along with his estranged daughter (Ella Purnell), and a timid safecracker (Matthias Schweighofer). Along the way, our heroes become suspicious of one another’s motives as well as the mission itself, especially once they realize what they’re up against.

The elaborate action sequences provide some surface thrills, but just don’t expect much emotional depth or moral complexity while exploring deeper sociopolitical themes about immigration, capitalism, and more.

In what’s unsurprisingly intended as a franchise launchpad, Snyder — who also handles the cinematography here — stylishly amps up the gratuitous gore for genre aficionados, although the bloodiest confrontations are sometimes staged with tongue in cheek or sprinkled with allegorical pop-culture nuggets.

With more laughs than frights, Army of the Dead struggles to remain emotionally grounded amid all of the over-the-top mayhem. It never commits to a consistent tone as it funnels inevitably toward a high-stakes final showdown of apocalyptic proportions.

There’s some, ahem, brainless fun to be had in this exercise in overkill, even if there’s ultimately not much incentive to root for the living over the dead.

Rated R, 148 minutes.