Army Of The Dead Reviews Round-Up: What Did Critics Think?

This Friday will see the release of Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead into theaters before it arrives on Netflix next week, but the review embargo on the film has officially lifted and it sounds like the filmmaker has another hit on his hands. As of this writing the film has a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes with 39 total reviews, his highest RT score ever, eclipsing his first film, 2004's Dawn of the Dead; butt what are the critics saying specifically? We've got a run down starting with our Charlie Ridgley, who scored the film a "4 out of 5" and wrote: "It's certainly messy at times and a couple of the subplots don't quite find their footing, but it's an imaginative and absolutely thrilling ride that is hard not to enjoy."

Another "Fresh" review came from Rolling Stone's K. Austin Collins who said that Snyder does good work with the zombie movie formulas but leaves some things unexplored that were primed for it. He writes: "Because the movie doesn't — not even when going so far as to, say, give us a taste, a literal taste, of zombie-on-zombie, rotten-flesh-on-rotten-flesh romance — what winds up standing out isn't the movie itself, so much, but the cast carrying it."

Not everyone was positive however, ScreenRant's Molly Freeman awarded the film a 2 out of 5 stars rating, writing that fans of Snyder's previous work will likely find a lot to like about the new movie but that others may not be so lucky. "Others may find it to be a bland, humorless addition to the genre," she says. "As such, fans of Snyder's work will no doubt want to check out Army of the Dead, and those intrigued by the premise may want to give it a shot. But Army of the Dead is by no means a must-watch zombie or heist movie, and folks uninterested in this film would be fine to skip it."

WhatToWatch's Matt Donato gave the film a 2.5 out of 5 rating, comparing it favorably over World War Z but added: "There's a gladiatorial primitiveness about Snyder's monsters and had more emphasis relied on building blocks outside glowing blue ooze, randomness in cosmetic designs might stoke further intrigue. As is, we're just here for Siegfried & Roy's decaying tiger who patrols territory borders. The rest is wild, but undefined and haphazardly implemented."

Army of the Dead will be released in select theaters on May 14th, debuting on Netflix around the globe on May 21st.