Zack Snyder (“Watchmen”, “Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice”) has become synonymous with films that are flashy and stylish yet overly long and without any real substance. Snyder’s addiction to all the tropes of his previous films is on full display in “Army of the Dead”. This is a zombie film with a surprisingly interesting premise. It’s such a shame Snyder doesn’t know how to keep things interesting.

After a zombie outbreak, Las Vegas has become sealed off. The U.S. government now intends to nuke the place to wipe out the zombies. A Japanese businessman (Hiroyuki Sanada “Sunshine”, “Mortal Kombat”) hires a team of mercenaries to go into Las Vegas and perform one of the greatest heists in history by stealing the contents of a vault hidden in the city.

Dave Bautista (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) is basically the star as he plays the leader of the mercenary team. Unfortunately, the script gives him very little to work with and the character just comes across as a real bore. It’s a shame because I think Bautista could work well as the lead. Hiroyuki Sanada is good despite his brief appearance. Most of the characters and the performances are just forgettable. Tig Notaro is terrible though as Peters, who flies the helicopter. The zombies look okay.

“Army of the Dead” is a slow and boring movie. Some of the actions where the mercs are running around the casino and blasting zombies are actually decent. If this film was an hour shorter, it might be somewhat engaging but it is so unbelievably slow and it’s just filled with talking. I came here to watch zombies being blasted and instead, we get bland conversation after bland conversation. Snyder started his big movie career with a remake of “Dawn of the Dead” and after all these years, you would hope he would have learned from some of the mistakes of that movie to make a better zombie flick. Snyder hasn’t learned because he never learns, no matter the genre.