Review of World War Z (2013) by Niall E — 18 May 2014

That the zombie craze still has a grasp on pop culture is incredible to me. I've been totally done with the genre ("genre") for years. The few bright points (Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, etc) have been overcrowded and diminished by a slew of if-you've-seen-one-you've-seen-them-all zombie movies.

People seem to have forgotten that it's not the zombies that make a piece of entertainment entertaining, but the ability to deliver a good narrative.

Five years ago World War Z might have stood out as a nice example of zombie cinema. Now it's just tired. You've seen the scenes before: urban building exploration ala The Walking Dead, escaping via water ala Dawn of the Dead remake, zombies breaking down doors ala every zombie movie ever. And it's hard to completely fault WWZ for this--this is what the zombie narrative is.

WWZ attempts to make a more distinctive zombie. These are faster zombies, and they swarm. But doing what 28 Days Later did, except more extreme, isn't changing the narrative. It's just changing the visual stimulus. Admittedly, the bird-like noises and jaw clacking is kind of unnerving, but this feels like an element stolen straight from alien-centric sci-fi rather than zombie-centric sci-fi. Aka, still not particularly impressive.

Brad Pitt is always entertaining, though his character here loses a few points on the empathy scale. "Thanks for running around, risking your life and everything. But you're a dick." That's how I feel about the character. But his wife loves him, and his kids love him, so what do I know? Maybe they didn't realize he was perfectly comfortable letting the world crash and burn around him so he could stay with them. Oh wait, his wife begged him to not leave. She's a dick, too.

If nothing else, WWZ is a loud movie with explosions and combat and screaming. So if that's what you want...