First and foremost, let me warn readers that if you in any way, shape or form liked World War Z, this is not the review for you to be reading. Seriously, I have nothing good to say about this film in the following 500+ words. Well, maybe there’s one or two good things I have to say… wait, never mind, that’s probably a lie. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I hated this film from start to finish and everything in between. Read on to hear some of the reasons why (all of the reasons would constitute an entire book, which I don’t have time for).
The story of World War Z is self-evident. A zombie virus breaks out. Zombies run around everywhere, kill people, infect people and eventually cover the entire globe. Brad Pitt is awesome and must save the world by finding some way to halt or cure the virus. By the end of the movie he has come across at least some of the answer. The good guys win (sort of).
And that’s all there is to it. Pitt moves around a lot, going from country to country trying to trace the origins of the virus. Instead of finding them, however, he stumbles across a different answer to the problem - zombies don’t bite really sick people. Apparently, they can smell the fact that you’re terminal or somesuch. That part I can almost believe. It’s the rest of it that made me want to punt my TV across the room.
Problem #1 - The Zombies are not zombies. They bite people, sure, but once you’ve been bitten the zombies decide that’s good enough and then immediately go running after someone else. They’re not proper cannibals, just serial nibblers. Also, they have super powers. If a virus gives me the ability to leap over cars and run and climb with such skill that an Olympic athlete would be jealous, sign me up. Heck, they even manage to pull off some killer human-pyramid type stuff.
Problem #2 - Everything happens for a convenient reason. I never knew that zombies hated Israeli music so much, but apparently they do. Never mind the constant noise of construction and other things going on 24/7 at the Israeli border, once people start singing, it’s instant zombie-ant-pile action. Need zombies to show up right in the middle of the action? They’re there waiting for you. In fact, military personnel make sure to not clean and clear areas just in case the zombies are needed for an exciting escape sequence.
Problem #3 - Who needs an original plot? Considering the source material was so filled with originality, it came as sort of a surprise to realize that they’d simply cut-and-pasted a basic Us vs. Them formula onto the script and changed all the bad guys to zombies. Everything that happens in this film has been done, and better, in many other films. Sure, World War Z has a bigger budget so it looks prettier… oh wait, no it doesn’t. The FX were clunky and annoying and only the most basic things, such as explosions and the like, came across half-decent. Anything involving zombie hordes looked positively laughable. The big budget just ensured that they had lots of neeto sets on which to play out their recycled drama.
And I think I have to stop there, before I give myself an aneurism from all the rage building within. Sure, I didn’t expect too much. I didn’t even expect it to have any relation whatsoever to the book. But what they did end up putting together - World War Z name or not - was one of the worst zombie flicks ever made. I’ve seen some pretty bad zombie movies as well, so this is high praise (?) coming from me. After the first 30 minutes, I was just waiting for it to be over. I felt no sense of horror or suspense, had no interest in the characters or their plight and cared less for the fate of the world. I just wanted the damn thing to end so I could curl into a ball and cry myself to sleep.
And they plan on making a sequel to this thing?
Photo Credits -
World War Z courtesy of walleh.com
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