Review of World War Z (2013) by Michael E — 28 Mar 2018

Now I'm not a huge zombie person as much as some other people are and this isn't a gore hounds dream of a zombie film (Thank you PG-13) but I will admit I was generally surprised for what I got considering the trailer didn't intrigue me that much.

The acting in World War Z is mainly hit or miss in my mind. Brad Pitt, while not a huge fan of his work, does a very good job here and gives a very legit serious performance. Mireille Enos does a very good job as the wife of Brad and does get a few very well pulled off emotional moments. My favorite actor in the film though is Danielle Kertesz who plays a foreign soldier who helps Brad Pitt through Israel and the hospital at the end of the film who has her hand amputated off due to getting bitten and keeping it from spreading. She gives a very good emotional performance and she definitely knows how to pull off the very intense moments in the film. The rest of the cast does well but they don't really focus on a lot of the side characters in the film, mainly its just Pitt, the wife, and the soldier, so a lot of the side characters are either forgettable and just there to die, or just give a passable performance.

Now the effects. This is the one thing I was mainly concerned about, because in all the trailers, they show the massive amounts of zombies piling on top of one another and running in MASSIVE groups and it is painfully obvious CG and looks pretty laughable from far away, but up close the zombie makeup actually looks very good and the makeup does have some fantastic details to it, especially the teeth and hair on some of the zombies, especially the last one near the end of the film. And some of them have very graphic detail to them which I was genuinely pleased with that they at least made them look like zombies unlike some other zombie films in the past few years.

Now the horror element. Considering it is a zombie movie you would expect some suspense and jump scares, and this is my one problem I have with the film, the jump scares are very predictable, and I was even talking to my friend (Very quietly I might add) in the theatre during the jump scare scenes and saying, this would've worked so much better if they did this. One example is a zombie is shown on a stretcher in a flashback explanation scene asleep, the doctor is examining the zombie while dormant, and at one point puts his ear to the zombies face, now I thought it was going to be that the zombie was going to bite him while his face was right there, which would've been a very good jump scare, but he backs up and they zoom on the zombies face and its eyes open up, which killed the whole jump moment. The movie is just full of these moments that kill the jumpscares by anticipating them. It's almost like the film is to scared to actually scare the audience which is not a good sign for a zombie movie. And I've seen jump scares done very well in other PG-13 films such as Mama and the Grudge and it is just sad that they don't utilize jumps that well. That is until the last act of the film where Brad Pitt and the soldier are in a research facility with a few other people where they have to find the cure so they have to go into the other half of the building, only problem is that the whole other half of the building is crawling with the other infected doctors and scientists, so some of the doctors, Pitt and the soldier have to sneak through there without alerting the zombies, and this is where I think the suspense is just phenomenal. The whole scene builds up so well having the first half of the scene in quiet while the people slowly have to sneak stealthily through the zombies without getting caught. And there is one scene where Pitt is in the medicine room locked in and I think this scene is arguably one of the best suspense scenes I've seen in a film. I won't ruin it but it is just fantastically creepy and makes you feel so anxious on whats going to happen.

Overall, while this isn't the best Zombie film I've seen, I feel that the film has some fantastic elements of a zombie film, adds a couple things, has some good suspense (near the end), good acting, good writing, and some great makeup. I'd say it's at least worth one viewing if you can get over how cheap the CG looks at points and how predictable the jump scares are.