Ejército de los ladrones

Many people out there will not like the type of film that Army of Thieves is. Yet many people like myself love it. So, much like the previous film, scores will will either be very low or quite high.... A super serious drama Army of Thieves is not. What it is however is 2 hours, of light drama laced with comedy that is very enjoyable. It tells a prequel story of how the master safe cracker Sebastian, comes to be involved in the world of crime. Joining with a crew that include Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel) as the master thief, Brad Cage (Stuart Martin) as the muscle, Beatrix (Noémie Nakai) as the hacker and finally Rolph (Guz Khan) as the Driver. All the actors and actresses were very good. Its not the type of script/film that one of them could show a 10/10 performance, however they brought to life the good script at hand

One of the criticisms I imagine is that this movie will be called cliched due to its "cliche" moments. However, this movie isn't trying to be super serious and accidently putting in cliches while trying to make a 10/10 film. This film does it in a self aware funny manner. Another nice little feature of this movie was learning about classic music and german mythology via "cliche" exposition. But I enjoyed the movie all the more for it. I loved this movie being all breaking into safes and Interpol being in pursuit. Rather than Zombies. But only by a little. So 8 out of 10. If you liked the original movie watch this one and if you haven't watched either. Watch the original movie first, then this one if possible.

This is a prequel to Army of the Dead (2021). Sebastian (Matthias Schweighöfer) is a mild-mannered bank teller by day and a YouTube expert on safes by night. His clip has one view. It's master thief Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel) and she recruits him into her gang. They're planning to breaking into three legendary safes.

This is an origin story but nobody was asking for one. It's fine. The whole point of the original is zombies. This one kept the zombies by putting them into nightmares. It's not the same thing. It's fine. Korina has some minor fun. Sebastian and Gwen are good. It's a lot of fine.

The movie starts in a very unique way. It is artistic and creates an interesting built up. The pace of the movie is fast enough to keep you awake, which is good; even if you're not too excited about the happening, you still don't get bored. However, the end of the movie doesn't make enough sense. It felt like sort of another movie. It's like nobody knew how to finish it properly, in an interesting and meaningful way. Also, "Army" of Thieves doesn't make much sense either. Where's the "Army"? The ending of the movie might make more sense if there's second movie to it, but in any case, the ending is not fun.

I wasn't expecting much from Army of Thieves, but I ended up liking this prequel spin-off more than I liked Army of the Dead. The characters are what really make this movie enjoyable. Matthias Schweighöfer, Nathalie Emmanuel, and the rest of the gang have good chemistry & entertaining dialogue. And while it does seem strange to have a zombie apocalypse NOT be the center of your story, this film was still a fun ride.

Army of Thieves is a superior (zombie-less) prequel to Zack Snyder's original zombie fest "Army Of The Dead". Although this is a predictable Netflix production, there are enough action, twists, shallow dialogue and romance for an evening of entertaining viewing. Set in Europe, Army of Thieves is a starring vehicle for German director/writer Matthias Schweighöfer, who shines in the lead role as the nerdy and silly safecracker and in giving a European angle to the film's directing. Hans Zimmer's music score also gets a thumbs up, and so does Bernhard Jasper's cinematography work.