I've watched it. Maybe it's not on par with Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, but it's a pretty good movie (the zombie aspect). Maybe the heist aspect of the movie feels not as strong as the zombie aspect. And surely, Zack likes his movies to be on the longer side (see Zack Snyder Cut of Justice League, Batman V Superman Ultimate Edition, Watchmen's Ultimate Cut, and whatnot). Then the father-daughter relationship, it's been always there. It's something Zack has wanted to be there since the early days of the film's existence (circa 2006-2007). Did Dave Bautista and Ella Purnell pull it off nicely? I don't know.
Omari Hardwick and Matthias Schweighöfer are faves in this film.
About the overuse and over-abuse of shallow depth of field, it's a stylistic choice (it's like J.J. Abrams and his lens flares). At first, it struck me on the trailers, but as the film went on, I just rolled with the punches. As I said, Zack's stylistic-aesthetic choice to go for shallow DoF and smooth-buttery out-of-focus BGs and environments.
But I never felt like "OMG, I just wasted 2+ hours from life that I'll never get back". I think that Zack Snyder has done and is doing pretty fine zombie movies (namely Dawn of the Dead and Army of the Dead, with the former being the best). Depending on how this one and its prequels turn out, Zack said in the interviews that he has some wild ideas on how to continue the story. Maybe he oughta do one more, I guess he should.
This news item is from
March 2007. The father-daughter story arc was always there.
The Latest Zack Snyder Breaking News, Comment and Features from Cinemablend
www.cinemablend.com
Zack Snyder has achieved one of those rare Hollywood survival scenarios. He directed a remake of a cult classic film and survived. Not only did he survive the making of Dawn of the Dead (which even original director George Romero professed enjoyment for), but Snyder has gone on to win fanboys over with his adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300. Everyone knows his next project is another comic book adaptation - this time the legendary Watchmen, but Snyder’s not stopping there. He wants to head back to his roots.
According to Variety, Snyder is returning to the zombie genre with Army of the Dead a (for once) original tale for Snyder to take on. The idea of the film follows a father trying to save his daughter from a zombie infested world and is set in a quarantined Las Vegas. Not to cut on Snyder’s originality, but isn’t a desolate Vegas featured in the promo for the next Resident Evil zombie flick?
Snyder hasn’t revealed what shooting techniques he’ll use for the film, although it’s likely some of his 300 skills will come into play if he’s shooting another army movie which, if the title doesn’t give it away, he is. Snyder professes part of the reason he wants to do this film is that no zombie movie has been done on the scale they are looking at. Nothing? Not even Romero’s Land of the Dead which featured a world overcome by the zombies?
I liked Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake and would be interested to see what might bring to a larger scale picture. I only have one suggestion – I agree with Romero when he says Snyder’s zombies move too g*ddamn fast. Slow ‘em down if there’s going to be a whole freakin’ army!
OMG!
Thank God someone else mentioned this. Some scenes my TV looked like it had 1 dead pixel, other scenes 2 dead pixels. What is up with that?
Ya it's true, there are some dead pixels here and there.