Review of World War Z (2013) by Allan C — 18 Jun 2014

Surprisingly good zombie film avoids many cliches of the genre and strikes out in some new territory. The Max Brooks book that it's based on was written as a UN report without a central storyline or character, with each chapter presenting a different situation around the world at different stages of the outbreak.

The film bears little similarity to the book, which is understandable, but the film does capture the book's grand scale of an outbreak happening across the world and placing much of it within a political and historical context, though the politics and history is toned down quite a bit for a summer blockbuster.

The film follows UN troubleshooter, Brad Pitt, from the stat of the outbreak taking his family to safety thanks to an old friend from the UN who wants Pitt's help finding the source of the outbreak.

After a truly harrowing escape out of Philadelphia, Pitt and family are safely flows to an aircraft carrier in the Atlantic where Pitt is told that he had to go out into the hot zone if his family is going to be allowed to remain on the ship.

Pitt reluctantly then sets off around the globe in search of patient zero for answers or possibly a cure, from Korea to Israel and beyond. It's quiet novel for a zombie film to embrace such a massive international scope.

I've ready books that have done this, but no one has done this on film at such a massive blockbuster scale and this film really pulls it off. It's also refreshing to see a zombie film that focuses much more on suspense (the film is PG-13) and is so wildly successful at it.

I'm a pretty big gore hound and love me some Greg Nicotero FX, but it was a nice change of pace to see a film without all the blood and viscera. It was also interesting, just in terms of story, to see a zombie film that wasn't following the George A.

Romero mold of telling the story of a group of people trapped in a confined area by hordes of zombies. There were parts of the film that used this trope, but this film was less a tale of survival and more about a race to find a cure on a global scale.

You could draw an analogy between zombie film and alien invasion films, though the opposite is more often true of alien films. Most alien invasion films are along the lines of "Independence Day" or "War of the Worlds" where they tell the story of how the martian invaders are brought down.

The one notable film that diverges from that formula was "Signs" which told the story about an alien invasion from the perspective of a family living on a small farm, who spend most of the film watching the invasion on the TV.

Most zombie films are closer to "Signs" and tell the story about a small group of people trying to survive a zombie outbreak. Some zombie films like "Zombieland" or "28 Days Later" or even "Land of the Dead" have a decent amount of scale to them, but they never involve international globe trotting in search of how to put an end to the event.

So I found that element quite interesting as well. Brad Pitt is quite good in the lead. Pitt is someone who I want to dismiss as a Hollywood pretty boy, but he really does have some acting chops and has a terrific screen presence that you can't deny.

Given all of this film's bad buzz involving reshoots and production trouble, I was pretty skeptical that this film would be any good. This wasn't helped by the fact that it was directed by Marc Foster, who directed the awful "Quantum of Solace," but in this film he really redeems himself and directed some great action sequences, but more impressively directed some very suspenseful sequences.

Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard were brought in to rewrite the ending of the film and created a wonderful new third act, which includes a Wold Health Organization Doctor played by Peter Capaldi, who, as an inside joke, is billed as "W.

H.O. Doctor" before it was announced that he would be playing the 12th Doctor. And for a film where many characters pop in and out, Daniella Kertesz was memorable as an Israeli soldier Pitt meets along the way.

Kertesz hasn't been in any other American productions, but I hope she's someone we'll get to see more of in the future. Overall, I went into the film with pretty low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised by how involved I became in the story's nonstop roller coast ride action and suspense.