Thrilling and funny
This May, "Justice League" director Zack Snyder directed the post-apocalyptic film "Army Of The Dead", released on Netflix, has received attention from all walks of life for its unique theme and worldview setting and has achieved excellent results in many countries, and this time as a prequel to the same series, "Legion of Thieves" is set six years ago when the disaster first broke out, the story will have a connection with the previous work What is the connection between the story and its predecessor? The same also aroused the audience's inner curiosity.
The background of the story of "Army of Thieves
Long ago in the story of "Army of Thieves", there was a highly respected locksmith in Munich who worked hard all his life to support his family until his wife and children passed away in a tragic accident, and he began to create four operas based on Richard Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen" as a concept, called "Das Rheingold", "Valkyrie", "Siegfried", and "Ragnarök" respectively, which not only have strong Norse mythology but also hide many difficult to solve puzzles.
After completing these four safes, the locksmith made another safe to lock all his pain and misery with his life's work and buried himself forever. If future generations want to have the items inside, they can only use their wisdom and technology to unlock them. If they try to unlock it by force, the contents will be burned and the safe will be locked forever. At present, in addition to the "Ragnarök" whereabouts, the first three are being used, and how to crack them? The "Army of Thieves" is the plot of the film content.
The cast of "Army of Thieves
The "Army of Thieves" is directed by director Matthias Schweighöfer who plays the lead role of Sebastian, a German banker who lives a mundane life day in and day out, taking pleasure in introducing Wagner's safe to everyone on the Internet. One day the video he shot finally got a message inviting him to participate in a challenge, the content of which was to compete with other contestants to unlock it within a limited time, not expecting that this invitation would change Sebastian's life forever.
Under the background worldview of "Army of Thieves", Las Vegas was overrun and fallen by walkers, a beautiful woman, Gwyn, who discovered the unlocking ability of the main character, Sebastian, approached him. Gwen is the world's most wanted jewelry thief, she is forming a team of bank robbery, members in addition to unlocking experts and theft experts, there are master hackers Corinna, driver Love and martial arts hero Brad Cage, three men and two women so together, to start a criminal adventure.
Does "Army of Thieves" rate well?
As a heist movie, "Army of Thieves" focuses on their team's heist around Europe, "Das Rheingold" in a small bank in Paris, "Valkyrie" in a heavily guarded bank in Prague, and “Siegfried" is in a casino in Switzerland, these safes are owned by the "Army Of The Dead" that the mastermind Tanaka, and as the layers up, the more difficult to crack, the more cash is stored inside.
Personally, the fascinating part of the movie "Army of Thieves" is not only the robbery plan of each character, but also the story behind each safe that is closely related to the original Norse mythology, and the protagonist Sebastian trying to construct the internal structure of the safe in his mind through the sound of the turntable lock, and the process of cracking it one by one, not only the picture and sound presentation is quite exquisite, the characters in the process The interaction of the characters in the process is also very interesting.
The development of the plot of "Army of Thieves
Although by rigorous prior planning, "Army of Thieves" several people successfully cracked the first two relatively simple vaults, earning enough money for them to spend, but as Sebastian and Gwyn's relationship grows closer, the fighter Brad, who believes that the protagonist has no use other than unlocking, also deliberately abandoned him because of jealousy in the process of their being chased by the police. However, this action has triggered two other girls with the protagonist has produced revolutionary feelings of dissatisfaction, decided to break up with Brad, and went to Sebastian's house to apologize to him.
So the three people will continue to take action to try to complete the last known vault "Siegfried" with their strength to crack the plan. But not only does the difficulty of the vault gradually increase in complexity, in the face of their own betrayed Brad, and Interpol want to bring them to justice under the two-sided attack, but also the "Army of the Thieves" protagonist Sebastian and others originally quite difficult follow-up action to add more uncertainties.
Army Of The Dead prequel-sequel performance
Since the overall story is not much related to the living corpses, instead of saying that "Army of the Thieves" is a prequel to "Army Of The Dead", we should think of it as a "personal movie" that explains the backstory of Sebastian, a lockpicking expert, through the four safes left behind by Wagner, the two films use "Army Of The Dead" the vault hidden in the basement of a Las Vegas casino. “Ragnarök", the vault in the basement of the Las Vegas casino, interconnects the two films and gives a deeper description of the character.
If "Army of the Dead" is a living corpse version of "Now you see me", then "Army of Thieves" is a comedy version with a little romantic element. In the whole film, the character background and relationships with each other make a lot of management and portrayal of the situation, not only let the "Army of Thieves" story atmosphere and "Army of the Dead" is very different, but there is exciting and thrilling robbery, there are many people in the process of watching a smile cute bridge, but also let the "Army of Thieves" the whole film becomes more diverse and rich.
The meaning of the ending of "Army of Thieves
So just as Sebastian is responsible for easing the tension and creating laughs in "Army of the Dead", I also like the way "Army of Thieves", under the relatively light-hearted tone of the story, cleverly moves back and forth between the edge of mischief and seriousness, presenting Sebastian's innocent and cute character and his emotional relationship with the female lead Gwyn. In addition to giving a different look to this type of film, also brings out the meaning of the theme that the whole movie of "Army of Thieves" hopes to wrap with the story of the robbery.
At the end of the day, the protagonist of "Army of Thieves", Sebastian, as a geek with a dull and uninteresting life every day, what is his motivation for robbing this safe? Not only for the money inside, but more is also a kind of self-worth to achieve. Watching these marginalized people through the completion of the robbery mission to get achievements, but also can not help but make me think about the so-called achievement. The "Army of thieves" in the final protagonist to crack the vault will further deepen this theme, corresponding to his journey to find self-worth in the subsequent eggs so that the imperfect ending for the film finally left a little worthy of continued exploration of the flavor.
Conclusion of "Army of Thieves" Review
On the whole, compared to the polarized reviews of "Army of the Dead", which people may love or hate, I think the reason why "Army of Thieves" has been generally well-received is that the director has successfully combined the two genres of heist and comedy, striking a good balance between story content and commercial entertainment. The charm of the protagonist Sebastian also gives the whole movie a light-hearted and witty tone.
Although a comedy, "Army of Thieves" is a bit overlong at 127 minutes, unexpectedly does not make people feel impatient, but through the audience's curiosity about the subject matter itself and the subsequent development of the story let people smoothly finish it, I think "Army of Thieves" is the greatest success of the film.