Review of Army of the Dead (2021) by Nkuk — 23 May 2021

This film has some of the worst, most amateur, cinematography I have ever seen. What kind of noob cameraman shoots a portrait shot in shadow against an extremely bright background??? It was obviously a creative choice, because the exposition is delivered in back-lit darkness over and over and over again. As a photographer I found it infuriating. When someone is delivering dialogue you want their face lit so you can see properly what they are saying and the facial expressions, not people talking in shadow repeatedly. Maybe it was done on purpose so you cant see the wooden acting very well, who knows but I found it to be terrible. Large parts of the film are shot at a ridiculously shallow depth of field, leaving the subject of the frame out of focus. Some of the action sequences are a messy blur and much of it could be filmed anywhere as the background is continually out of focus. Its like someone has just discovered bokeh and totally overuses the effect when it is not needed or beneficial.

As for the movie itself, it was fun in a few places, had a couple of funny moments but was mostly fairly predictable and dull. It may have been because I was really looking forward to the film based on the trailers, the actual film itself was a bit of a let down in comparison. If you've seen the trailers you've seen 95% of the best parts of the entire 2.5 hour running time. It could easily have had 30-45 minutes chopped off with no loss and would have probably made for a better film. It felt it dragged on and on in places where the action slowed to some heartfelt dialogue, but I cared little for the characters, so wasn't really bothered about all the relationship parts of the film. It also had excessive slow-mo. It was a passable movie, but nothing special and certainly not something I would want to watch more than once.