ZOMBIE-ISH

MOVIE REVIEW:

WORLD WAR Z

By:

G.P. Manalo

Starring:

Brad Pitt

It seems that for the past decade zombies have been making a huge takeover in pop culture nowadays; from books, videogames, TV shows and movies, World War Z seems to be a new entry to the genre as it adapts a really famous novel by Max Brooks into a huge summer blockbuster.

World War Z is (loosely) based on a book with the same name by Max Brooks. It’s about a zombie outbreak that has ravaged the earth and humankind doesn’t have a fighting chance against the undead. The United Nations recruits an ex-military soldier, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) to help them figure out more about the zombies for them to fight back.

This movie is definitely nothing like the source material, that does take modern horror literature to the next level. From where I was standing the movie has a small percentage of it being accurate to the book even though there were very few hints or small crumbs of things that were in the book, But I try to act “Professional” about this kind of situation because I don’t want to compare the book to the movie because there is no point in doing so. That being said, The movie was definitely not the World War Z adaptation that I wanted but I still (marginally) enjoyed it for what it is anyways.

Instead of the movie having an (interesting) political narrative (which I heard was cut off and at the same time the main reason why they re-shot large portions of the film.), the movie was instead told like a videogame where one man will go to different places and at the same time he will encounter a zombie attack without getting hurt at all (until the third act where he rides a plane), it’s more of a rinse-and-repeat progression. It was good at first but as it goes on it became boring on a few set pieces, there was never that tense feeling in an action set piece, you barely root for the main character going out of the situation because you never felt the stakes were high or even a hint of suspense on that point because of how “invincible” the main character is (think John McClaine surviving a truck “accident” and lives without a scratch in that Generic Bruce Willis action movie).

The story literally felt like an anthology of things that we have seen in zombie movies from the past, I would’ve liked to see the “political” aspect of the book for film for it to at least be a fresh take on a zombie film (even if it will be boring or not) but when we do, instead we got generic military dialogue. They did do some genuine enough things with the existing elements and it was handled decently enough to progress the film. The even worst part of the narrative is the fact that The movie lets you assume more than seeing it happen in the movie; It seems that they are saving up most of the things that they want to explain in this movie for the existing sequel and they handled that aspect very cheaply in the movie as it ends on a one-note basis and the ending didn’t really feel fulfilling that much.  But what saved this movie was the third act of the film, as I watch the third act of the film I would’ve liked the movie to be more of that. More of those stealthy missions and showcasing practical zombie, hand in hand combat. There was more suspense in set pieces like that than what we had in the first half of the movie and Brad Pitt’s character wasn’t very stoic and invincible as the first and second half tells him to be, they actually show some vulnerability of the character.  It was very interesting to watch him go through various situations and I was rooting for him from those moments. 

When a zombie movie is PG-13 it is a very bad sign, a zombie fan will be disappointed on the fact that this movie is bloodless, not even a hint of gore. The movie censors the scenes of zombies eating people in a way on how the Hunger Games censors kids killing each other. And the way they censor it is the “artistic” camera technique known as Shaky Cam and the zombies would travel as a group like how a swarm of bees would travel together and pile on one person. Things like that took me out of the first half besides the fact that some of the situations that occur were overdone here and there. I do wish that the zombies could've been practical in most scenes, the CGI zombies were rather distracting for the most part. 

Brad Pitt is the focal point of this film, for the material he was given he was pretty good in the movie, not an oscar worthy performance but still great, he was able to carry the film. The first thing I didn’t like about the movie as I go in to it is the fact that they brought in a family in this story, and my first impression of this movie was it being like that bad Roland Emmerich film, 2012. The fact that they gave this character a family didn’t really work out very well after the first 30-40 minutes of the movie. Without the family in this movie, that movie could’ve been better without them. Throughout the movie they only exist through phone calls and even the dialogue between them would be rinse and repeat (“Hey how are you and the kids?”, “Are you okay?”, “Yeah.”). They should’ve explored more with Brad Pitt’s character as a “soldier”, the movie should’ve been better off that way but to say the least they did handle the family aspect decently enough through the first half. 

In the end, World War Z was a bad adaptation but not a terrible film in the process for purists of the novel you will definitely not enjoy this film if you want the movie to stay true to the source material. It is difficult to depart myself from comparing this to the source material it was based on, it is definitely not the World War Z adaptation that I wanted but I still marginally enjoyed it anyways. This movie could’ve been better in an R-Rating (especially when it’s a zombie film), the effects of the zombie swarm and the shaky cam did take me out in the movie. Even if it didn’t follow the story of the source material the movie did tell an interesting enough story of humankind’s last stand in the zombie apocalypse. The movie is a rental at its best than a cinematic experience. 

THE GOOD:

+BRAD PITT’S PERFORMANCE

+THE THIRD ACT
+SOME ENJOYABLE ACTION SEQUENCES

THE BAD:

-REPETITIVENESS

-DISTRACTING STORYTELLING AND CAMERA WORK

-UNECCESSARY ELEMENTS

-DEVELOPMENT

-ENDING

MY RATING:

2.5/5 – RENTAL!