They figure prominently in the movie’s best section, when Gerry travels to Israel to investigate why the Israelis sensed the coming zombie invasion early enough to build a wall around Jerusalem.īut since World War Z isn’t very interested in exploring the effects of a zombie takeover on social or religious order, the Israeli scenes, enlivened by eye-level shots of refugees trying to enter the walled city, are all we’ve got to imagine what the average person would experience. The most breathtaking are the overhead shots, oftentimes from a helicopter’s POV, showing thousands of zombies filling the streets like floodwater. These early scenes establish the speed and sheer number of undead while unveiling some visual go-to’s developed by Marc Forster (of the dreadful Quantum of Solace) and DPs Robert Richardson (who started the project) and Ben Seresin (who finished it and received sole credit).
But that won’t work during the high season of movie thrill rides, so Forster gets right to the action. If World War Z had hewed closer to Max Brooks’ source novel, it would probably have looked like Steven Soderbergh’s unadorned, compelling Contagion. His relationship with wife Karin (a quietly emotive Mireille Enos), which could have provided a much-needed emotional backbone, is a non-starter since they’re separated throughout most of the movie, giving us no opportunity to learn or care about them.
World War Z’s new third act, which includes a creepy crawl down the corridors of a World Health Organization facility in Wales, is its most suspenseful sequence, even if it’s too small-scale to work as an action movie finale.Īnother pressing issue, one that could not be solved, is that director Marc Forster and his army of A-list writers (Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, and Damon Lindelof) put more thought into the dead characters than into the living ones.īrad Pitt, who has never gotten top billing in a film like World War Z and would surely bring something interesting to the disaster hero archetype, is relegated to standard-issue, indestructible superman and apocalyptic tour guide. Milla Jovovich + Asghar Farhadi + Angelina Jolie + Brad Pitt: The Oscars By all accounts, one major issue was the lack of a satisfying third act, which resulted in scrapping millions of dollars worth of complicated action footage and essentially rewriting and reshooting the film’s last twenty-odd minutes. Indeed, the problems faced by World War Z are so well documented that Paramount smartly embraced a recent Vanity Fair piece chronicling how it got into such a $200 million mess in the first place. The living dead more intriguing than the living Still, it’s surprising World War Z turned out this decent, considering its epically troubled birth. Its staying power is the bigger question, since the movie lacks character investment, has a lousy ending, and plays like a succession of CGI action sequences strung together. This is likely in the short run, as World War Z is a propulsive, absorbing, visually striking enactment of a worldwide zombie uprising.
investigator Gerry Lane represent throngs of moviegoers who’ll mindlessly stampede to their local multiplex to see Brad Pitt, the man portraying him. They’re also a handy allegorical device that has been used to represent unchecked consumerism, Cold War paranoia, anti-environmentalism, and class disparity.įor the Marc Forster-directed World War Z, certainly the grandest zombie enterprise ever, Paramount execs have another allegory in mind: They’re hoping the zombies who mindlessly stampede towards former U.N.
Unlike the mercifully fading vampire phenomenon, audiences keep responding to the groaning, tattered living dead for reasons that go beyond any visual parallels to 9/11.Īside from just being cool, zombies are an unsettling reminder of our mortality and the lack of control we have over whether we live or die. Department of the Obvious, the undead continue to enjoy their extended cultural moment.
If there’s one thing harder to kill than a horde of zombies, it’s the unceasing horde of zombie movies, TV shows, books, and video games.Īs recently reported by the U.S.