Review: Zack Snyder makes a bitingly good zombie-heist flick

“We’ll probably die,” Ward says. “Some of us at least.”

The group needs to sneak into the city and that’s when the script by Snyder, Shay Hatten and Joby Harold gets sly. They rely on a smuggling coyote to skulk into a walled-off American city, one of several moments that lift the material. Sean Spicer and Donna Brazile debating immigration on TV is another. And the use of temperature guns to check if zombie-fication is happening is a prescient nod to the pandemic Snyder could not have known was coming.

The Vegas that the group enters is a freaky funhouse that the filmmakers have filled with 2,500 plastic skeletons. The zombies wear an alarming amount of rhinestones and ripped clothing. But they’re awfully fun to mow down (remember, kids, always aim for the head). Here the film makes lively nods to “Escape from New York,” “The Matrix,” “Aliens” and “Planet of the Apes.”

In addition to the zombie Elvis impersonator, there’s a zombie bride still wearing her veil and a zombie horse, but the Zack Snyder Hall of Fame Cool Deal is a zombie tiger. And it is glorious. (The filmmakers even visited Carole Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue of then-future “Tiger King” fame to make their computer critter more believable.)

To this world, Snyder has added a kind of zombie hierarchy. There are mindless Shamblers — think the target-practice “Walking Dead” zombies — and there are Alphas, led by a king and queen, who can think, love, hunt, mourn and presumably whip up organic recipes for human flesh. These are the ones you want to avoid. (Snyder in the film’s prologue indicates the top Alpha was a creation of Area 51.) And there seem to be hints of robotic zombies. Sleep well, kids!