Sometimes it pays to have the kind of training that could really help in a real zombie uprising or apocalypse, and it’s impressive to think that someone like Dave Bautista, who’s apparently been practicing martial arts and has been hitting the gym for years, would need to train any further. But the fact is that he trained with Navy SEALs for his role in Army of the Dead, a Zack Snyder creation that will be released soon enough for people to enjoy. The movie will be about a group of supposedly expertly trained zombie killers, all of them either soldiers, mercenaries, or those that have simply put in the time and effort to train themselves to be among the deadliest of combatants, who are hired out to complete a heist deep within the city of Las Vegas. The only problem is that in this story, Vegas is a zombie-controlled wasteland, where the zombies have apparently learned how to organize, mobilize, and have become far deadlier than they used to be in other movies. Anyone that has watched the trailer has seen that the zombies are definitely far more advanced than they’ve been in any other movie, which could make things a lot more difficult and even more entertaining, or could take things so far over the top that the human actors might need to pull it back just a bit.
But it does sound as though the training with the SEALs had more to do with gun handling, safety measures, and making things look as real as possible, though it’s not hard to think that they might have included other areas of expertise that even someone like Bautista might need a little help with from time to time. The fact that he’s been a pro wrestler and bodybuilder for so long doesn’t mean much when it comes to fighting, but knowing that he’s been into martial arts and has even wandered into MMA is enough to make it clear that the guy does know how to throw a punch and that he’s not entirely clueless when it comes to fighting. A few fine points here and there to make things look a little more realistic couldn’t hurt though, since a lot of movies tend to make fight scenes look so fantastical that it’s hard to believe that anything they’re doing could be real. Obviously that’s one part of the magic that goes into making a movie since creating fight scenes that look amazing even if they defy the laws of physics and common sense is something that is done to amaze and sometimes shock the audience. Creating realistic fight scenes in zombie movies though is a little unrealistic, especially if the protagonists have a working knowledge of how zombies operate. Fighting up close and personal with something that only has to bite you to win isn’t the best strategy of all time, meaning that keeping one’s distance and using firearms and other weaponry is by far and large the preferred style of fighting.
But it’s nice to know that for a while now there have been advisors on the sets of many movies that have the type of expertise that can help filmmakers to create a movie that’s a little more accurate, perhaps not always realistic, but still entertaining enough because actors are being taught how to hold a weapon, how to fire, and how to stow them safely when they’re not in use. Even if one isn’t a gun or action enthusiast it’s still a desire to see a movie played out in a way that looks correct, and there are simply too many movie gaffs that occur at times to think that every director knows what they’re doing when it comes to certain aspects of a movie. Dave Bautista admits to enjoying guns as a hobby but was no doubt grateful to the SEALs to clue him and the others in on how to hold and use a gun on the set since it’s far more impressive to see an actor getting something like this correct than to see them go the stereotypical action route and continually shoot from the hip as has been common in many action movies. Granted, shooting from the hip looks cool and it’s a much quicker way in some instances to just start spraying bullets as a deterrent, but it’s not nearly as effective as many gun enthusiasts would admit. Shooting from the hip has its time and place, but the audience typically wants to see people using guns properly these days.
Right now the movie looks pretty crazy since it’s bound to be a wild ride from start to finish, and it’s a big hope that the first impression will be accurate since plenty of people have been excited about this movie since it was first mentioned.
