Starring: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, and Daniella Kertesz
Directed by: Marc Forster
Screenplay by: Matthew Michael Carnahan and Drew Goddard
Based on the novel by Max Brooks
The zombie apocalypse strikes again!!!!!
Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is a United Nations employee at the time of the breakout of a disease that turns people into ferocious zombies. Nobody knows where the disease started or how to stop it. So, it's up to Gerry to travel all across the world to find safe zones and figure out how to stop this plague from destroying humanity altogether.
For those of you who are loyal readers of this blog, you know by now that I'm a fan of concept, the basic idea of the story. Sometimes a concept can be really bad, yet turns out to be an incredible story once the concept of the story is in context of the film. In other words, a good telling of the story can make for an incredible film no matter what the basic concept is. There have been many films released so far this year that seem to follow this idea, but sadly World War Z does not.
The concept for this film is pretty standard, but as always, I am intrigued to see how this story plays out on the big screen. There is a major difference this time, something we haven't seen before. The zombies are not slow walking undead creatures that eat nothing but brains, like we usually see. These zombies are ruthless savages who seem to have an amazing ability to think somewhat and actually run incredibly fast. These make for not so average zombies. So, this is a pretty cool concept, but does it play out well in context of the film? Not so much.
This film has one of the most misleading trailers for it I've ever seen. In the trailer, Gerry's family is taken to a ship offshore where they will ride out the pandemic, and the captain makes an interesting claim: "Life as we know it will come to an end in 90 days. It's on us to change that." We are led to think this will be a race against the clock to save humanity and we're given a timeframe. Maybe if this were in the movie, it might be more suspenseful and if it were actually the base for the storyline, I might have been able to focus on the film a little more than I did. But this line is nowhere to be found in the film. This could have been the basic concept for this film and it would have made for a pretty awesome film if it were a race against the clock. This element would have created some pretty interesting motifs and would have made for a much better story and a much better telling of this story.
The story has other problems with it. The characters are pretty flat and not tremendously well developed and there are missing details about the background, making for a less than fully developed world. It is never mentioned how the zombie apocalypse exactly started.
Something positive: Israel becomes one of the save havens for uninfected people to go, which makes us viewers hopeful that this somehow could end. In a film full of hopelessness, there is some hope at least that humans will survive this pandemic. But that's the only thing that leads us to believe they are going to survive. There is no evidence of a cure or that a cure will ever be created. So, once again we are left seeing these characters in utter hopelessness because there is almost no way they can survive unless the safe zones stay safe from the infection.
So enough with the story. Brad Pitt is better in his role as Gerry Lane than I had expected him to be. It seems like a pretty average role you would expect Pitt to play, and as usual, he plays it pretty well. His performance doesn't particularly stand out from the rest of the film, but no other performance does either.
The visual effects are only decent. They're always called special effects, but there's nothing special about the effects in World War Z. Even the zombies don't look quite as terrifying as one would expect zombies to be. But of course, these aren't your average zombies.
As you can probably tell, I have quite a few problems with the story, and not much of a problem with anything else. World War Z turns out to be a pretty average film in terms of its quality and there really isn't a whole lot of originality to it either, other than the fast moving zombies instead of the usual slow walking ones. World War Z is perhaps my biggest let down movie of the year. The trailer is misleading and frankly, that's my biggest problem of all. It's not the most entertaining movie ever and there are a lot of other higher quality movies out there. If you're looking for a good movie to see this 4th of July weekend, I'd recommend something else.
I give World War Z a C-.
Directed by: Marc Forster
Screenplay by: Matthew Michael Carnahan and Drew Goddard
Based on the novel by Max Brooks
The zombie apocalypse strikes again!!!!!
Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is a United Nations employee at the time of the breakout of a disease that turns people into ferocious zombies. Nobody knows where the disease started or how to stop it. So, it's up to Gerry to travel all across the world to find safe zones and figure out how to stop this plague from destroying humanity altogether.
For those of you who are loyal readers of this blog, you know by now that I'm a fan of concept, the basic idea of the story. Sometimes a concept can be really bad, yet turns out to be an incredible story once the concept of the story is in context of the film. In other words, a good telling of the story can make for an incredible film no matter what the basic concept is. There have been many films released so far this year that seem to follow this idea, but sadly World War Z does not.
The concept for this film is pretty standard, but as always, I am intrigued to see how this story plays out on the big screen. There is a major difference this time, something we haven't seen before. The zombies are not slow walking undead creatures that eat nothing but brains, like we usually see. These zombies are ruthless savages who seem to have an amazing ability to think somewhat and actually run incredibly fast. These make for not so average zombies. So, this is a pretty cool concept, but does it play out well in context of the film? Not so much.
This film has one of the most misleading trailers for it I've ever seen. In the trailer, Gerry's family is taken to a ship offshore where they will ride out the pandemic, and the captain makes an interesting claim: "Life as we know it will come to an end in 90 days. It's on us to change that." We are led to think this will be a race against the clock to save humanity and we're given a timeframe. Maybe if this were in the movie, it might be more suspenseful and if it were actually the base for the storyline, I might have been able to focus on the film a little more than I did. But this line is nowhere to be found in the film. This could have been the basic concept for this film and it would have made for a pretty awesome film if it were a race against the clock. This element would have created some pretty interesting motifs and would have made for a much better story and a much better telling of this story.
The story has other problems with it. The characters are pretty flat and not tremendously well developed and there are missing details about the background, making for a less than fully developed world. It is never mentioned how the zombie apocalypse exactly started.
Something positive: Israel becomes one of the save havens for uninfected people to go, which makes us viewers hopeful that this somehow could end. In a film full of hopelessness, there is some hope at least that humans will survive this pandemic. But that's the only thing that leads us to believe they are going to survive. There is no evidence of a cure or that a cure will ever be created. So, once again we are left seeing these characters in utter hopelessness because there is almost no way they can survive unless the safe zones stay safe from the infection.
So enough with the story. Brad Pitt is better in his role as Gerry Lane than I had expected him to be. It seems like a pretty average role you would expect Pitt to play, and as usual, he plays it pretty well. His performance doesn't particularly stand out from the rest of the film, but no other performance does either.
The visual effects are only decent. They're always called special effects, but there's nothing special about the effects in World War Z. Even the zombies don't look quite as terrifying as one would expect zombies to be. But of course, these aren't your average zombies.
As you can probably tell, I have quite a few problems with the story, and not much of a problem with anything else. World War Z turns out to be a pretty average film in terms of its quality and there really isn't a whole lot of originality to it either, other than the fast moving zombies instead of the usual slow walking ones. World War Z is perhaps my biggest let down movie of the year. The trailer is misleading and frankly, that's my biggest problem of all. It's not the most entertaining movie ever and there are a lot of other higher quality movies out there. If you're looking for a good movie to see this 4th of July weekend, I'd recommend something else.
I give World War Z a C-.
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