Review of World War Z (2013) by William C — 17 Oct 2015

Brad Pitt fights zombies and tries to find a cure to the widespread pandemic of the un-dead that are tearing the world apart. The movie is very fast and lots of things happen, Pitt seems to go every place there is on earth and just brings trouble wherever he steps foot, and he doesn't even kick that much ass. Now OK the movie is well OK and it goes along well, bit of a shaky start but it gets into an fairly nice flow, sometimes I didn't feel much of a connection with the characters but all in all they are fun kind of and the actors playing them do an alright job. The film suffers from an abundance of special effects and they seem weirdly outdated seeing as this is a high budget high octane thriller, you expect it to look good with the CGI.

The movie is set in a whole lot of places, it feels like your typical disaster movie but of course add in the zombies and you have "The Day After Tomorrow" but instead of snow falling, it's zombies. It's as mentioned before very fast, the cameras go a little crazy with the shaky cam and some scenes with a lot going on get lost in all the movement, it feels like some kind of relief when the camera finally sits still. The movie mixes action but also a kind of emotion to not make this OTT but also not overly emotional either, it feels like action but with brains behind it.

Brad Pitt produces and stars in this movie and is very acceptable in the role, sometimes the pace doesn't really work and I'm not going to sit here and say Pitt was great, but he is satisfactory in the lead role as Gerry Lane a former United Nations employee. The cast is not really an all star cast other than Pitt which is nice because you don't feel that blockbuster kind of feeling when the characters are simply talking to one another. The films pace yet again makes some actors roles very insignificant, it can feel that the people behind it don't want you to feel anything for anyone other than Pitt and some people he meets along the way.

I liked Marc Forster as director but I can't say he knocked this out the park, his handle on the movie can overuse some things like effects and of course the cinematography, well I don't know if it was him or Ben Serisin who was the cinematographer for this. As the writing goes it can be good and bad in equal measures, it is exciting work in the writing for sure but it never truly lets the plot mature and I wasn't so keen on the ending, even Forster can't make the end any better. The locations are truly great and hats off to the people who found the places or built the studio sets because it at least feels real, it never looks like its fake or anything and it makes you feel like this is more real than many other zombie movies out there.

I can't say I really liked the movie but I certainly didn't dislike it, for me it was alright and from what I have seen of others they mostly like it but many do not, not quite a love it or hate it kind of film but still one where moments can annoy people. A thing to add is don't watch this if you have read the book this is adapted from and expect it to be the same, try as hard as you can to watch it as a movie piece rather than comparing the two because this is completely different storytelling and to judge it on how it compares or according to some "pales" in comparison, it would be harsh on this.