What ‘Army of the Dead’ Says about Individualism

I will never exempt a movie from criticism by using the euphemism “It was fun”. But I enjoyed Zack Snyder’s latest film, Army of the Dead, despite its many flaws, which are worthy of analysis too.

Maybe that was because my co-workers at the Foundation for Economic Education created rock-bottom expectations with their descriptions of it as “two and a half hours of your life that you’ll never get back.” Should Army of the Dead have been better? Absolutely. But given that I set the bar so low, it left me pleasantly surprised.

Snyder, the movie’s writer, director, and director of photography, made a bold choice to rely exclusively on a razor-thin depth of field. This unique cinematography resulted in some artful shots, but having the majority of each frame out of focus became nauseating to the audience considering the 148-minute runtime. Besides this, the 1960s lenses he used made it difficult to keep actors in focus, and in a few shots, they briefly waver out of focus. 

The movie’s technical problems extended to dead pixels visible on HD screens, and it also suffers from a few plot elements that made me go “That doesn’t make much sense, but O.K.” 

Knowing these issues beforehand, I watched Army of the Dead pretending it was a 1980s B-movie, and not a $90-million-dollar release from the director experiencing a popular resurgence in the wake of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. 

Snyder’s indulgence comes through in Army of the Dead’s stylistic cinematography and the hedonism expected of a Vegas zombie film, but not in a superfluous runtime. Actually, the movie doesn’t feel long – probably because of all the ridiculous stuff it’s packed with, from zombie strippers to zombie tigers to an unborn zombie baby to zombie cyborgs (which are unexplained but maybe a setup for something for a sequel?).

If you haven’t heard this movie’s plot, here’s a rundown: Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) is hired by billionaire Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) to extract money from his casino in zombie-infested Las Vegas. Ward assembles a team, breaks into the quarantined city, but the plan falls victim to infighting and unexpected complications. During the heist, he also reconnects with his daughter (Ella Purnell), a relationship that provides some emotional heart to the film, in contrast to some of the more forgettable side characters. 

There are a lot of political references in Army of the Dead, from Donald Trump to immigration to the pandemic, but these elements are more aesthetic allusions to hot-button topics than social commentary. In any case, I want to talk about a different theme I drew from the movie.

From Dawn of the Dead to I Am Legend to Train to Busan, it would hardly be a zombie movie without themes about selfishness and self-sacrifice. Army of the Dead is no exception. 

Zombies themselves can be a metaphor for mindless greed, but the zombie genre also portrays human characters who fall prey to a similar mentality — usually resulting in their poetic demise. In Army of the Dead, the most obvious example is Martin (Garret Dillahunt), who Tanaka sent to monitor the squad, and who they soon become suspicious of. 

When characters like Martin betray their colleagues, it’s easy to interpret it as an admonition of “selfishness,” but this is based on an incorrect understanding of what it means for an individual to act in his self-interest. 

In Army of the Dead, Martin gets into a petty argument with one of the team members, Chambers (Samantha Win), and tricks her into getting separated from the group. This puts the whole team in unnecessary danger, and also results in her death. 

Later, he also betrays Lilly (Nora Arnezeder), the smuggler who served as their guide through the quarantine zone by locking the exit behind him to prevent her escape from the zombie horde. However, this resulted in him being without an item he was secretly trying to steal. 

Many people would assume that individuals acting in their self-interest would constantly screw over others for their own gain, and that we need some other motive in order to behave cooperatively. But in situations in which people benefit from working with other people, it’s actually in their self-interest to act in ways that benefit both themselves and other people.  

To quote the famous words of Adam Smith in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

Individualists should recognize that we benefit from the skills and work of other people. If you try to win by screwing other people over, you won’t get very far. 

So, Martin’s actions in Army of the Dead were not really self-interested.  They were just stupid.