Rated
PG-13 (Intense Frightening Zombie Sequences, Violence and Disturbing Images)
Running
Time: 1 Hour & 56 Minutes
Cast-
Brad
Pitt-Gerry Lane
Mireille
Enos-Karin Lane
Abigail
Hargrove-Rachel Lane
Sterling
Jerins-Constance Lane
Fana
Mokoena-U.N. Deputy Secretary General Thierry Umutoni
Daniella
Kertesz-Segen
James
Badge Dale-Captain Speke
Ludi
Boeken-Jurgen Warmbrunn
Elyes
Gabel-Dr. Andrew Fassbach
David
Morse-Gunter Haffner
Matthew
Fox-Parajumper
Fabrizio
Zacharee Guido-Tomas
David
Andrews-U.S. Naval Commander Mullenaro
Peter
Capaldi-W.H.O. Doctor
Pierfrancesco
Favino-W.H.O. Doctor
Ruth
Negga-W.H.O. Doctor
Moritz
Bleibtreu-W.H.O. Doctor
Directed
by Marc Forster
 |
| Brad Pitt battles the zombies in Marc Forster's "World War Z." |
Note: Screened on Monday, June 17, 2013 at Regal E-Walk Stadium 13.
How
would YOU survive the zombie apocalypse? Realistically speaking, the answer for
most people is sadly 'we wouldn't,' unless you're Brad Pitt, who stars in the summer
blockbuster "World War Z," loosely (and I must emphasize this word) based
on the 2006 novel of the same name from author Max Brooks (yes, son of comedian/filmmaker
Mel Brooks). Once a neglected subgenre that appealed to a niche audience, zombies
have exploded in popularity recently thanks to television shows like AMC's
"The Walking Dead.' The Marc Forster-directed film arrives this Friday
with a ton of baggage as the production was infamously plagued by budget overruns
(from $125 to around $200 million), reshoots, and extensive script rewrites. In
fact, the original ending, which climaxed with a large-scale battle set in Russia,
was completely scrapped as it was deemed too 'abrupt and incoherent' due to the
script not being finalized in advance. Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard were
hired by Paramount to write a new ending at the last minute, which meant an additional
thirty to forty minutes of new footage had to be shot in order to salvage the picture.
Given all the negative publicity, it's a wonder that the film didn't turn out
to be a total disaster. Riding on the coattails of its lead star and hurtling at
a breakneck pace, "World War Z" manages to entertain with its sense
of scale and thrilling set-pieces but the film will ultimately be remembered
more for the trouble it took in adapting Brooks' novel for the big-screen.
As
a zombie pandemic spreads across the globe and threatens to bring humanity to
extinction, former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is forced
to come out of retirement to search for a potential cure. Leaving his wife Karin
(Mireille Enos) and two daughters (Abigail Hargrove and Sterling Jerins) in the
care of his friend, U.N. Deputy Secretary General Thierry Umutoni (Fana Mokoena),
Gerry is teamed with a young virologist (Elyes Gabel) and sent to South Korea
to locate 'Patient Zero.' Surviving an endless onslaught of undead, his mission
soon takes him to Jerusalem and finally to Cardiff, where he makes a startling discovery
that may just buy the world some time…but at the cost of his own life.
You
can definitely tell that "World War Z" is a cobbled mess, but it's a
mess that's always consistently entertaining. For diehard fans of Max Brooks'
novel, the film will no doubt be a disappointment as it bears absolutely no
resemblance to the source material with the exception of its title and premise.
Inspired by Studs Terkel's The Good War: An
Oral History of World War Two and similar in style to Whitley Strieber and
James Kunetka's Warday, Brooks' novel
is presented as a series of interviews that recount the story's eponymous 'Zombie
War' one decade after it began. Unfortunately, the epistolary nature of the book
made it hard to translate to the big screen and much of it had to be streamlined
for a mainstream audience. Even the origin of the zombie virus was changed from
China to South Korea so as to not offend Chinese censors. The end result is
very much watered-down; many of the themes that Brooks explored, such as government
ineptitude and human shortsightedness, have been excised. What Forster's film does
capture from the novel is the fear and uncertainty that comes with a zombie apocalypse.
"World War Z" literally hits the ground running; after a brief introduction
where Gerry's family enjoys a breakfast together, they're thrown into the middle
of the end of the world as chaos suddenly erupts on a Philadelphia street (actually
Glasgow). It's a thrilling sequence, with Gerry and his family making a desperate
escape on an RV to Newark, only to find the city in complete anarchy as
citizens run around and grab whatever they can get their hands on. What makes
these scenes so frighteningly effective is their realness. When society is faced
with such a scenario, it's pretty much every man, woman, and child for
themselves.
The
Lanes eventually hole up in an apartment for the night before making a mad dash
to the roof, where a U.N.-sent helicopter awaits to retrieve them. Like 2008's
"Quantum of Solace," Forster uses shaky cam to create a sense of disorientation
but this technique does not translate well in 3D. One of the biggest flaws with
this film is the 3D conversion, and what's surprising is how lazy it is. I thought
Hollywood was past this given the negative reaction to "Clash of the Titans"
three years ago. It's clear that Forster made no consideration to the 3D while
shooting and the end result is a film that looks muddled and dim for much of
its two-hour running time. Thankfully, the massive set-pieces save "World
War Z" and the pacing is just relentless. The highlight is by far the
Jerusalem sequence, where the city has walled itself off from the rest of the
world, one of the few aspects lifted from the novel intact. Of course, the zombies
manage to break through by crawling over themselves to reach the top. The CG
for the most part is good and gives the undead in the film a horde-like nature.
Without even pausing for breath, Gerry comes face to face with an outbreak on a
passenger plane to Cardiff. This leads into the new ending that Lindelof and Goddard
wrote and it's very different from what came before. The scale is ramped down
considerably and feels more at home with a typical, low-budget zombie movie. That's
not a knock against the third act though as it brings back the tension and suspense
we saw in the beginning. It's really a miracle that "World War Z" managed
to come together in the end. Sure, character development is kept to a minimum and
the violence is handicapped by the PG-13 rating but it's never boring and even quite
gripping at times.
This
is entirely Brad Pitt's show and although it won't go down as one of the actor's
best, he delivers a satisfactory performance as a reluctant hero with the fate
of the world on his shoulders. In fact, his presence is a big part of what makes
the film so entertaining because it's not often that we see Pitt starring in a
summer blockbuster like this. Sadly, the rest of the supporting cast is completely
wasted. Mireille Enos is given the thankless role of playing the worried wife
while Ludi Boeken's Mossad agent is utilized only to dump exposition on the audience.
James Badge Dale and David Morse pop in for five minutes and are promptly swept
aside, with "Lost" alum Matthew Fox reduced to a bit role as a parajumper.
Only Daniella Kertesz manages to make an impression as a Segen from the Israeli
military who aids Pitt during the third act in Cardiff.
To
be released on June 21, 2013, "World War Z" has received largely
positive reviews so far with 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics noted that it was 'uneven—and
fans of the book may be annoyed by how thoroughly it diverges from the source
material—but [the film] still brings smart, fast-moving thrills and a solid
performance from Brad Pitt to the zombie genre.' Interest has been high given
how popular zombies currently are and the combination of Pitt's name with the
acclaim of Brooks' novel should translate into a strong opening at the weekend
box office behind Pixar's "Monsters University." It'll easily cruise
to $100 million but Paramount will have to look to international grosses if it
wants to recoup all the money that was spent on reshoots and rewrites. At the
end of the day, "World War Z" is merely a good zombie flick and
that's all you can really hope for given all the trouble the film faced on its
journey to theaters.
Final
Rating: 3 out of 5
"Don't
pretend your family is exempt when we talk about the end of humanity."
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