Army of the Dead

At some point this must have seemed like a fresh idea, an army of C.G.I. skeletons defending a treasure. Unfortunately the skeletons, who do not speak, are more interesting, and have far better acting skills than anyone else in this movie. With stupid unnecessary female conflicts, ridiculous dialog "What the hell is that,blood?" "Yea this is not good", and "Indiana Jones" nonsense, "Army of the Dead" is a wannabe spectacle of awful proportions. What starts out as a dune buggy adventure, winds up with a possessed professor and illegal treasure plundering. BAD, and not good bad . "Sharks in Venice" is a masterpiece, because it's so bad it's good. This is just BAD. - MERK

It wasn't as awful as lets say, Hide and Creep, but it was close. By the way, Hide and Creep is the worst movie of all time!! Not even as good or as campy as Plan 9 from Outer Space--don't rent it, ever! Special effects department on Army either didn't have much money or they fell a sleep on the job. Interesting skeletons, but really really bad acting. (The skeletons hissed like cats.) Weren't enough naked women running around either to justify the $1.07 rental cost. The guy who played the "professor" was just terrible. Really an amateur. He must've been an investor that demanded a part. This movie may have been good if they only had a new cast, new director, new special effects, new writers, new producers, so on and so forth. Just skip renting it--not even worth the buck at RedBox.

Well it was terrible, but it is a hilarious kind of terrible. A great movie to watch with a group of friends. Its got Skeleton Spainards, pitiful cg, Spotaniously combusting arrows, Volkswagen desert racing, characters who refuse to communicate,extremely fuzzy logic, acting worthy of the worst you tube videos, and now that I mention it a crappy you tube video is exactly what this movie felt like. recycled cg atrocious writing and painful plot development. You can usually tell if a movie is going to be bad if by the end credits you never knew any one in the movie had a name. And for some reason the audio quality was really bad, and while that may actually be a good thing (as you would not have to hear the stupid dialog being poorly delivered) it was still sort of annoying. all in all its like a said I enjoyed the movie but it was not because it was any good at all.

This was just short of being a complete waste of time. The stop animation skeletons saved it.

It was strange seeing actors taking such a poorly written movie and playing it completely straight, as if they thought this was something good. That said the actors could on the whole act. I like "B" movies but they need certain redeeming features for them to work: either they need humor, gore or cleverness. This lacked all three. Yes there was some CGI and I suppose it almost gave me a laugh, but that is because it looked like rivers and fountains coming out of the people "bleeding". Seeing a one foot wide wall of CGI blood hit a windscreen and then in the next scene there are just a few dots of blood on that car...well...and this was about par for the movie. Just not worth your time.

Army of the Dead is a classic example of a film with ideas much bigger than its budget: a group of desert racers pitted against a legion of Conquistador skeletons is a wonderful notion, and using CGI technology to realise the complex visuals is perfectly OK in my book (I like CGI when done well), but, without enough cash in the coffers to do the concept justice, what is the point?

The film starts off well enough, as a fairly likable bunch of thrill-seekers set off on a 500 mile high-speed journey, with one of their number secretly searching for the location of an ancient horde of gold. However, after he discovers the treasure, and triggers a curse that see hundreds of bony soldiers rise from their graves to protect the loot, the film goes rapidly downhill.

With a skeletal army obviously 'inspired' by Jason and the Argonauts (and, consequently, Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness), a middle section which reminded me of Assault on Precinct, and a Terminator style ending (that last difficult-to-destroy skeleton looking more than a little like the relentless T-800 crawling after Sarah Connor), the film rarely feels very original (and is it just my imagination, or does the Army of the Dead's music also take its cues from the soundtracks of these far superior films?).

Furthermore, the film's poorly developed script is loaded with plot contrivances and very silly moments that really take some swallowing: the hero's (obviously very rich) friends give him an original 16th century sword for a birthday present (unpractical when going on a long cross-country car journey, but so convenient against the undead); the guy seeking the treasure hires gun toting mercenaries to help him and looks surprised when he is double-crossed; a girl reveals she possesses super powers by lifting a huge boulder above her head; and the final survivors discover a convenient, abandoned radio station equipped with fuel and a massive generator—ideal for destroying their enemies.

And as for the effects... in the right lighting (ie., very low), the CGI skeletal warriors are just about passable, but, for the most part, they look cheap (because they are) and laughable. Likewise, the various other digital effects—explosions, squirting blood, electrical power surges—are extremely amateurish and therefore quite unconvincing.

Army of the Dead might possibly be fun for those who enjoy really cheesy B-movie trash, but will no doubt be quite painful for most others.