Film Review: World War Z

Director: Marc Forster

After it was announced that the critically acclaimed zombie novel of the same name by Max Brooks would be made into a Hollywood blockbuster, many zombie fans were skeptical. How many close to the original text would they keep? Or would this be the useful Hollywood butchering of a literary classic? You can see where they've drawn inspiration from the book with certain elements and mainly through the search across the world for the first infected patient but that is where the similarities end, and that is clearly not a good thing.

Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) helps his family to safety

The book looks beyond the obvious and delves deep into the indirect effects of the zombies like the profiteers making money from people's fear of being infected, the mass exodus of people from the infected areas and the political ramifications around the globe. These are largely ignored throughout the film for one long narrative of Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) returning to work to find the cause and possible solution to the zombies taking over the planet. The overall plot itself has its moments but is rather unsurprising throughout, it starts off in a Cloverfield style escape from the streets of Philadelphia before developing into a much grander epic in multiple locations across the world.

The production problems with the movie coming in massively over budget after re-writes and more footage had to be filmed to produce a coherent ending, this meant the third act of the film was shot much later and was written by Drew Goddard (writer behind Lost). The third act is where this half decent movie falls flat on its face with a completely dull and cliché finale which ruins what could have been a passable action movie. The early scenes of escaping Philadelphia and the frantic chases through the streets of Israel are exhilarating and leaves some promise for the sequel that has already been announced. If they can retain the good elements and work on putting some of the more intriguing parts of the book into the film then the sequel has some great potential.

Zombies climb a wall

The film is solely based around Pitt who plays Gerry Lane in a rather dull manner, he has his moments of action against the zombies but aside from this he lacks any of the charisma and charm you might expect from a Brad Pitt performance. The rest of his family are incidental characters purely used to artificially pull the emotional heart strings and force him to return to duty in the first place, Mireille Enos is critically under-used in this film. Other characters within the film purely exist to advance the plot, coupled with the final act and the necessary cuts to make a zombie movie PG-13 in the US, leaves it feeling very clinical and detached. The deaths or trauma suffered by any of the characters are washed over entirely purely to make way for the main character worrying about getting home to his own family. In essence the whole film lacks heart and compassion towards its fellow people, whether it be kindness or hatred towards other people.

1.5/4 Late re-writes and generic action plot add to the disappointing spectacle.