Brief Story Line
When an incident occurred just outside Las Vegas which made most of its population became undead/zombies, the US government decided to quarantine the city. A Casino owner named Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada - Mortal Kombat, The Last Samurai etc) recruited Scott Ward (Dave Bautista - Stuber, My Spy etc) to rob the vault located in the hotel in Vegas before the president nuke the city in 3 days time.
Due to the huge reward, Scott who wanted to give something for his estranged daughter Kate (Ella Purnell - Churchill etc), agreed to the extremely dangerous heist job. He recruited his old military friends Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick - Power TV series etc) and Maria (Ana de la Reguera - Jessabelle etc) who introduced them to safe cracker Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer). Together with few other recruits including chopper pilot Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro - Instant Family etc) and accompanied by Tanaka's head security Martin (Garret Dillahunt - Braven, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series etc), they started their mission.
So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this exciting zombie heist movie.
End of Brief Story Line
When I started watching this, I was surprised to see the duration which was 2 hours 28 minutes. At first I thought wow, that's a very long movie which would be very satisfying if it was full of action. The early part was indeed very intriguing and that almost 6 minutes opening credits were absolutely great as it basically captured the essence of how Vegas became as it was in dramatic fashion.
As we were given introduction of the crew members and some other people who would be involved in the heist mission, I felt the intensity was a bit reduced. In fact, not until the mission truly started that we finally got to the cool part. Even then it was not like a nonstop action as I would have hoped for. There were indeed some action every now and then which were wonderful. But I was really entertained and satisfied with the last 45 minutes or so which were super intense and awesome!
The heist itself to me was not the most brilliantly executed type as it felt more like a zombie survival kind of story. There were a bit of drama here and there with the focus on the father-daughter relationship between Scott and Kate. But do not expect this to be a melodramatic type, as funnily enough there were no characters that I truly had personal attachment with. Of all the crew members, I thought Dieter was the one that I probably liked the most with his naivety. Btw, despite a large number of crew involved, I was happy that they all had their own "specialty" which made them easier to differentiate, like the chopper guy, or the safe cracker guy and so on.
Aside from the cast mentioned above, there were also other support cast like Nora Arnezeder as the Coyote, Theo Rossi (Luke Cage TV series etc) as security guard, Raúl Castillo (Looking TV series) as sharpshooter Guzman & Samantha Win as his friend Chamber. They all provided more colors to this movie. Oh one thing that I really admired in this film was the really unique type of zombies that I think I have not seen in other zombie movies/series. There might be some form of those but this one I thought were just fantastic as it made the zombie fights better. The special effects were also great especially if you see Valentine (you would know what I mean if you have seen the film).
There were some who criticize the long duration, but I personally do not mind that if it was full suspense. Besides some Zack Snyder creations were also very long (his amazing director's cut Justice League with > 4 hours was the latest example). Snyder whose other works included 300, Sucker Punch, Man of Steel etc also served as co-producer and cinematographer. His distinct style was apparent during the zombie fights as well as those last scenes, but there was one part that I thought could have been done better, i.e the helicopter scene. That was to my personal opinion focused too much on dramatic moment but resulted to a bit of defying logic. Before I forgot, there was no mid or post end credit scene in this movie.
Overall though, it was still a very enjoyable and entertaining zombie movie. Although I would have loved it better if the intensity was felt throughout the whole film. From what I understand, there would be anime-styled sequel series and a prequel movie after this one. So if you are looking for stylish but still violent and gore zombie heist movie, filled with songs that suit perfectly in the exact moments, then you would like this one.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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