Summaries

Army of the Dead (2021)

Film and Plot Synopsis

From Zack Snyder, director of Dawn of the Dead. A zombie outbreak in Las Vegas has left the city closed off from the rest of the world. While the U.S. government prepares to destroy the city with a nuclear bomb, a group of mercenaries are hired by a casino owner to retrieve his $200 million from a vault in the basement of an overrun casino. The mercenaries now must navigate a new world order to complete their mission before they are overrun by a zombie horde or the clock runs out.

‘Army of the Dead’ Movie Summary

The summary below contains spoilers.
Army of the Dead (2021)In the near future, a United States military convoy out of the Area 51 base is transporting a highly dangerous cargo along a highway outside Las Vegas. Unfortunately, the convoy collides with a distracted driver receiving oral sex from his newly married wife. The convoy’s cargo, a powerful zombie, escapes and then kills and infects several of the soldiers assigned to the convoy. Afterwards, the zombie heads towards Las Vegas where he continues to spread the zombie virus. Soon, most of the city is infected. Mercenaries Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), Maria Cruz (Ana de la Reguera), and Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick) assist the military in evacuating people from the city before Las Vegas is enclosed with thousands of cargo containers. Many of Scott, Maria, and Vanderohe’s friends are killed during the exodus, and they each remain haunted by the operation years later.

Six years later, Scott is working in a greasy spoon restaurant as a cook. He is approached by casino owner Bly Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his associate Martin (Garrett Dillahunt) who are seeking to hire a group of mercenaries to recover $200 million from his casino vault in Las Vegas before the United States military uses a nuclear bomb to destroy the city and the zombies. Tanaka offers Scott $50 million for the job and instructs Scott that he can hire whomever he wants for his team. Scott recruits Maria and Vanderohe, along with helicopter pilot Marianne Peters (Tig Notaro), German safecracker Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer), and sharpshooters Mikey Guzman (Raúl Castillo) and Chambers (Samantha Win).

Scott also recruits the assistance of his estranged adult daughter Kate (Ella Purnell) to help the team access the city. Kate works at a quarantine camp surrounding Las Vegas. Scott believes that Kate has never forgiven him for killing her mother after she turned into a zombie. Kate places her father in contact with Lilly (Nora Arnezeder), a smuggler familiar with ways into the city through the barricades. Lilly insists on including corrupt camp security guard Burt Cummings (Theo Rossi) as part of the team. Martin surprises the team by announcing that he is joining the team per Tanaka’s request. At the last minute, Kate announces that she is joining the team against her father’s wishes so that she can find her friend Geeta (Huma Qureshi) who snuck into the city to break into slot machines to make enough money to bribe her way out of the quarantine camp. Geeta never returned.

The group easily enters the city and immediately encounters a zombified tiger which disturbs Martin. Lilly wounds Cummings and explains that a group of intelligent zombies known as Alphas will allow safe passage for the group through the city in exchange for a sacrifice. An Alpha female known as a Queen (Althena Perample) hauls Cummings away to the Olympus casino where the zombie leader Zeus (Richard Cetrone) infects him and makes him a loyal servant.

Lilly leads the team to a building full of hibernating zombies. The team moves quietly and methodically through the sleeping dead with the use of glow sticks laid on the floor by Scott. Chambers indicates to Martin that she does not trust him and suspects that he is following a different plan. While Chambers brings up the rear, Martin diverts her off the path by throwing a glow stick into the zombies. Chambers gets into trouble and begins to wake the zombies. She begins to fight them off while Martin locks the only exit to the room closing off her escape. She escapes by jumping through a window, but she is surrounded and eventually bitten. Guzman shoots the gasoline canister on her back which kills Chambers and the attacking zombie horde.

It’s a goddamn zombie tiger! That’s crossing the line! Martin (Garret Dillahunt)

The team eventually arrives at Tanaka’s casino. Scott and Kate work on the power while Peters fuels and repairs a helicopter that was abandoned on the roof during the evacuation. Dieter works on opening the vault while Vanderohe acts as his bodyguard. Lilly and Martin stand sentry outside the casino. Martin lures the Queen into the open and captures her. He then beheads her and takes her head. He tells Lilly that the zombie head is worth a fortune outside of Las Vegas. Zeus discovers her body and returns her to the Olympus casino. He opens her stomach and reveals that she was pregnant with a zombie fetus. Zeus than leads his zombie minions to Tanaka’s casino to seek revenge against Scott’s team.

Meanwhile, with power restored, Scott’s team learns from a television broadcast that the government has moved the nuclear strike forward, and the team now has only 90 minutes before the city is destroyed. Dieter opens the vault with just an hour to go before detonation. The team begins loading the money into bags when Scott notices that Kate has disappeared. Scott realizes that Kate has gone to find Geeta at the Olympus where Kate believes she is being held prisoner by Zeus. Scott and Maria are about to go in search for her when Zeus and his zombie army attack. Maria is immediately killed when a zombie breaks her neck in front of Scott.

The team uses an alternate route to get to the roof but become trapped when Martin locks them behind a gate. Martin explains that Tanaka never cared about the money and only wanted the zombie head to create a zombie army. However, Martin soon learns that he has been duped when he looks into his bag and finds that Lilly has replaced the head with bill counting machine. Not long after, Martin is killed when he is mauled by the zombie tiger just outside the casino. At the same time, Vanderohe attempts to fight Zeus to protect Dieter. However, the mercenary is overpowered. Dieter sacrifices himself to get Vanderohe into the vault safely before he closes it, saving Vanderohe.

Scott, Lilly, and Guzman fight their way through hundreds of zombies on the casino floor while carrying the heavy bags of money. Eventually, Guzman is overtaken by the zombie and is bitten. Guzman detonates all his grenades at once, killing the zombies and himself. Scott and Lilly make it to the roof where Peters is just getting the helicopter started. Zeus confronts the trio, and Lilly attempts to distract the zombie leader with the Queen’s head while Scott and Peters escape in the helicopter. Zeus impales Lilly with a metal bar which causes her to drop the Queen’s head off the side of the roof.

Peters flies Scott to the Olympus to save his daughter. Inside the Olympus, Kate finds Geeta and kills zombie Cummings. Zeus races across the city on his zombie horse to stop Scott. Scott finds Kate and takes her and Geeta to the roof. Zeus arrives just as they are taking off and jumps into the helicopter. Scott and Zeus struggle, and Scott accidentally shoots Peters during their fight, causing Peters to fly erratically. Zeus overpowers Scott and bites him. The nuclear missile hits Las Vegas and the detonation momentarily distracts Zeus. Scott shoots Zeus in the head, killing him. The concussive wave of the bomb knocks the helicopter from the sky. Peters and Geeta are killed during the crash. Kate survives and finds her dying father in the wreckage. Scott gives his daughter a few hundred thousand dollars that he still had on his person. The two apologize to each other about their estrangement. Scott dies and then turns into a zombie. Kate kills her father and then breaks down in tears as a rescue helicopter arrives.

A short time later, Vanderohe crawls out of the vault with the remaining bags of money having survived the nuclear blast thanks to the reinforced steel of the vault. He steals a car and drives to a private airport where he rents a private jet to take him to Mexico City. As he celebrates on the plane, he realizes that he has been bitten by a zombie.

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Netflix released Army of the Dead on May 14, 2021. Zack Snyder directed the film starring Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, and Omari Hardwick.

User Rating: 2.06 ( 4 votes)
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