Marvel Zombies – REVIEW

“Who will save us from our heroes?”


Director: Bryan Andrews
Cast: Iman Vellani, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Tessa Thompson, Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Hailee Steinfeld, Wyatt Russell, Randall Park, and Dominique Thorne
Synopsis: “After the Avengers are overtaken by a zombie plague, a desperate group of survivors discover the key to bringing an end to the super-powered undead, racing across a dystopian landscape and risking life and limb to save their world.”

__________________________________________________


I might have to just get right to the point for this one because I don’t have a bunch to say about Marvel Zombies, the latest Marvel miniseries that has hit Disney+. I really wasn’t too excited for it, mainly because of the other animated Marvel show What If…? ending up really collapsing in on itself. They had a Marvel Zombies episode that I thought was… fine? I didn’t hate it, but it left my mind pretty soon after watching it. I also just don’t like this cel-shaded animation. When it was announced that the Marvel Zombies miniseries would just be a sequel to this episode, my expectations fell quite a bit for it, but I gotta go in with an open mind, right? That’s what a critic does, even a budding one. And I have to admit, this is just a mixed bag of things, much more than I expected for such a low-key release for Marvel. Funny enough, the one actual connection to the What If…? episode, which follows an undead Thanos in Wakanda, is followed up pretty well. It’s probably my favorite sequence in the very short miniseries, which isn’t saying too much. The biggest problem with Marvel Zombies is its shockingly bad writing. The story itself, like the plot beats and where it goes, is fine, but nothing really new. Specifically, it is the dialogue here. I’m usually open to giving some passes to the writing in comic book projects these days, but there are some rough lines here. It’s so broken that I almost gave up watching entirely, so imagine what the other MCU haters are saying about it. That being said, it’s not all bad. Having Kamala Khan basically be the Frodo of the series was a great call, mainly because Iman Vellani is delightful as Ms. Marvel. There’s some genuinely cool bits of animation that break out in the finale, and the overall “I just didn’t need to see that”-level of violence and gore was a nice touch for a zombie miniseries. If anything, Marvel Zombies needs to emphasize its name. It feels much better when it’s a zombie apocalypse that happens to have superheroes, as opposed to a Marvel movie that happens to be about a zombie apocalypse. It is Marvel Zombies? Or is it Marvel Zombies? I much prefer Zombies.


Ryan’s Grade: C-