28 Days Later, part James Bond, and part Dawn of the Dead, Brad Pitt’s World War Z is an action packed pseudo zombie flick that ultimately trades big set pieces for scares. There be mild spoilers ahead….
Brad Pitt’s World War Z
The movie wastes no time getting started, as Pitt and his onscreen family – along with everyone else in Philly – are soon running for their lives as hordes of people begin attacking their fellow citizens, apparently after getting bitten by other infected people. Pitt – who’s character used to be some sort of UN hot shot investigator – is soon rescued by his UN pals and sent right back out to see if he can find out what really is going on. The rest of the film features him jet setting into various exotic areas of the world looking for clues.
During all of this, World War Z features what is easily the biggest set pieces of oncoming zombie Apocalypse ever filmed. At least 3 big scenes featuring hundreds (maybe thousands) of extras, huge locations, and massive amounts of excellent CG all make for a pleasing summer popcorn chomper of a thrill ride. Pitt is excellent, although it’s a little hard to believe that he loves his onscreen wife, or that he even knows her name as they has less then zero chemistry. And of course Pitt’s fame doesn’t lend itself to scares – kinda like watching Frank Sinatra in zombie flick – seriously, what the hell is going to happen to him?
But the biggest risk taken in the film – its unique take of zombies – is what will likely turn off many “purist” zombie fans. At first, the “zekes” as they’re called seem to be 28 Days Later styled rage victims – nothing more and nothing less. But as the film goes on, it appears to tell us that no, the rage victims die, then turn in to real old fashioned zombies, albeit ones that can move very fast, just like the ragers. It is never made clear if the rage virus kills then reanimates the victims, or if they remain live infected “ragers” until made dead… at which point they raise up as undead rage zombies. It’s never discussed in the film and there’s no experimentation done on the zombies. Some “zombies” are clearly called undead, yet it is never really made clear that they are in fact dead or not.
In some ways it doesn’t matter – there’s a bunch of zombie-ish people who Brad Pitt has to destroy, good enough. There’s certainly enough action that one can overlook it. But like I am Legend, this sort of hodgepodge shatter gun approach to what exactly the monsters are tends to take away from the real terror achieved in Romero’s flicks, or in Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead. An audience wants to known what the hell it is that the heroes are fighting, and in Z, we’re never really quite sure. We don’t know if they’re scared of fire, if they want brains, or when (or if) they’ll die if left alone. The only thing we know for sure is that they move crazy fast and love to bite [Censored].
The film’s size and scope seems to overwhelm director Marc Forster from time to time as he simply walks by easy moments of drama – like when Pitt leaves his family and a kid they had rescued earlier. It happens all too easily. Everyone seems cut from the same, 2 dimensional cloth in the film. No one really seems truly scared and there’s little actual heroism or cowardice shown. The massive “zombies waterfall” attacks are actually pretty damn cool, but can’t touch a hair on the head of The Walking Dead for actual emotional power. Even with the awesome mass zombie attack scenes (and make no mistake, they are awesome), I never really got the sense that the world was dying. No massive empty city street shots (something which did give I Am Legend some grit) as seen in 28 Days Later or Day of the Dead. No one who matters to Pitt dying and coming back as a zeke, no sense that New York or London is really gone. No subtly other then what Pitt’s performance brings.
And people do things that would never happen in real life – there’s much reference to Pitt’s family being taken off of the ship they’re staying on, but why for the love of God would the military waste gas flying civvies back to the mainland? Why would they risk the infection? Now if this movie lined up Pitt’s family along a wall and shot them, then tossed them overboard, I might believe it. As it was, Forster leaves too many nuggets of drama un-mined and too many, “Nope – don’t buy it” moments. Of course, the many script and production problems this film was rumored to have probably have something to do with this clunkiness, but even so some basic things were ignored that didn’t have to be.
Not a bad flick – in many ways it’s a super fun action movie – but just as an audience would never really fear for James Bond, World War Z makes it all but impossible to really be scared for Pitt, or anyone else. Part of that is its near bloodless approach. Seriously, I’d guess then less then a pint of fake blood was used. I mean the film works without gore, but it is a zombie movie right? Where’s the dang guts? And when a TV show has oodles more gore then a $200 million movie about zombies, it’s a little weird. Even when a character gets a hand cuts off there’s nary a drop. Part of why zombie movies have so much gore is to prove to the audience that the dead can rise – which of course is a major problem with this film – are the victims really undead or not? I have no idea why anyone would rate this film PG-13. In the end, I’d guess I would call it a zombie movie, but WWZ stretches that definition about as far as it can. So watch it for fun, but not for fear.
BOTTOM LINE: 3.5 I guess it’s a movie about zombies out of 5″
