Review of World War Z

[rattfan]

I went to the cinema last week. I almost never do this these days: expense, apathy, whatever, but this was World War Z which I had been looking forward to for some time, despite all the reports about what a dog's breakfast it had been to make. You know; reshoots, changing the ending, the zombies breaking out of the holding pens before the director was ready for them, that kind of thing.



This was definitely the first globetrotting zombie movie and one of few not to be concentrated on the United States. Despite the title, it has nothing to do with Max Brooks' book. The focus is on the United Nations trying to save people and sending an investigator [Brad Pitt] to find the source of the plague, believing this knowledge will help them in finding a vaccine.

So there's a lot of plane travel, but not the "whoosh, we're in a different country" sort of thing you get with shows like Warehouse 13 where the characters are on planes all the time and seem to get to their destinations as fast as teleporting. These trips are believably difficult and dangerous, spanning South Korea to Israel to Wales, each leg gleaning some crucial bit of information amid scenes, for example, of rampaging zombies surging up the walls of Jerusalem [new walls].

In Wales the characters move through a World Health Organisation centre now populated by white-coated ex-researchers, now intent only on other folks' brains. Here came some movie-science which made even me think "WTF?" and I am not expert in medical science. But hey, it's a zombie movie and it made about as much sense as a zombie virus in the first place.

There were overhead shots of the crowd scenes, like those wildlife documentaries showing lions hunting at the edges of a herd of wildebeest. The parallel was probably intended and it was nicely done. I also appreciated the logic of why Israel, alone, paid attention when someone read the word "zombie" in a certain email. It was worth watching it to hear that and I'm not going to spoil it here.

I didn't like the ending, which seemed hurried, as though more had been intended. It probably was, remembering the troubles with reshoots. Since the movie had a PG-13 rating, I found it curiously bloodless. I'm used to the gore level of The Walking Dead where you will see the machete come down and the results. Not so here. The emphasis is on panic - huge crowds being infiltrated by predators who want to kill you and turn you into themselves. When they are done, there will be nothing left of you and your civilisation.

I'll probably be up for watching it again.

Comments

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

:)

[ankh-hpl.livejournal.com]

Do you recommend the book,as well? You know your zombies, so I'm asking.

[ratfan.livejournal.com]

The book is very different. A thinking person's zombies :-) I'll write a proper review of that too, I think....got to go to the gulag now!

[ankh-hpl.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've put a hold on one of our library's e-copies, though who knows when I'll get to read it. There's a bit of a line . . .

[ratfan.livejournal.com]

The book is basically a series of "articles" written by a journalist who survived the Zombie Apocalypse. He goes around interviewing survivors and gradually putting together a worldwide picture of what happened. So it's written as "nonfiction." I've found out what the original ending of the movie was and it had somewhat more to do with the book. I would have preferred it, as it had rather more blood and guts. As one zombie fan mournfully put it, "But we like seeing zombies get their heads chopped off!"

I think the producers of the movie were going for a "general" audience, hence it being so mild that it didn't suit a lot of hard core zombie fans, who aren't bothered by and expect to see violence and gore. The book isn't sensational as such; the style is definitely that of a journalist discussing serious material, not tabloid press, but I guess it's easier for an author to describe heavy violence than it is for movies to get away with showing it. Not if they wanted to keep that PG-13 rating. I don't think I've ever heard of a zombie movie with a rating that low. [Low in this sense meaning they wanted kids to be able to get in to see it.]

[ankh-hpl.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Sounds good to me, though I don't generally read zombie fiction. This sounded SF & different, & I've heard elsewhere that it's worth checking out. Your evaluation, of course, counts for a bit more. (-:

[ratfan.livejournal.com]

And you're borrowing it, so it's not like you lose out. I like the focus on the survivors; the many different ways they survive and learn to face the fact that they're no longer at the top of the food chain. I was thinking the other day: everything that happens in the WWZ movie is the sort of thing that prey animals, i.e mice and rats, deal with all the time, i.e. whenever you venture out, there will be something that wants to eat you. :-)