Bullet Points: World War Z
I had been meaning to watch World War Z for quite a while. I have had it on my Netflix list since it started streaming and it took me a while to finally sit down and give it the time. I wouldn’t say it’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen but I can name you five zombie movies that were better off of the top of my head. I did, however, enjoy a lot of the action and I would check out the sequel when it gets made. It felt like a movie that was trying to be The Hurt Locker but was more Resident Evil. And by that I mean it tried to tell a story with emotion but it really felt like a video game. Check out my Bullet Points fools.
The Gist: UN employee Gerry Lane traverses the planet in search of a way to stem the spread of a virus that is turning people into murderous zombies. Lane is not only searching for the origin of the virus but also a way to stop the disease from spreading to his family.
The Cast: I normally am all in for a Brad Pitt film but I heard a lot of bad press before this movie came out. It didn’t translate to the box office cause this baby made a shit ton of money. It’s crazy that Brad Pitt’s most financially successful movie is World War Z. I think even he would agree that this is one of his worst performances. Not because he sucks in it, but because the script is as unoriginal as any other zombie out there; nothing that happens here hasn’t happened in half a dozen other movies in the past 5 years. Hell, The Walking Dead uses some of these tropes and it is on every week. There are several other good actors who play smaller parts here but the whole movie follows Pitt so as far as I’m concerned they don’t matter. We really don’t get enough time with anyone other than Pitt to even care whether they live or die. He is constantly running around so anytime it seems like there is an interesting story to be told (the soldiers in Korea, Israel’s wall) he is out of there, leaving a wake death in his path.
Even Brad doesn’t get much character development.
The Villain: With a movie all about fighting zombies they really didn’t fight very many zombies. The first footage of the attacks is pretty cool and came a lot faster than I thought but we never really get a good idea why it happened. They spend half of the movie searching for answers as to why the virus started but at some point they just stop caring.
Attack of the computer generated ant-people.
The Action: There is no way that I would ever prefer CGI video game lookin’ zombies to dudes running around in make-up and hyped up on Red Bull. WWZ seems to be more interested in showing us what it looks like if there are thousands of zombies running around than actually telling a good story about zombie survival, which is what I thought the original Max Brooks book was all about. As far as the action on screen goes, it was pretty sweet for the short amount of it that we got. The soldiers in Korea were badass but that plotline lasted about as long as my piss-break lasted. They were in and out of that place. I dug the idea that Israel had built up the wall but that failed in about the least realistic way possible; cheerleading pyramid attack. My favorite scene was when Pitt got blood in his mouth and he didn’t know if he was gonna change so he stood on the edge of the building till he knew it was safe.
This movie felt like they left out a few important scenes.
Take it Home:
- Shout out: Belarus Airways gets a shout out here.
- Johnny on the spot: How was the National Guard already out on the streets before it was even on the radio?
- The problem with 10 different script writers: There were several different interesting things going on in the movie but they just kinda jumped around too much. The 10th man thing in Israel was cool but they stopped talking about it as my interest piqued.
- Deleted storyline: At one point there was supposed to be a storyline where Gerry’s wife was having an affair with the Para Jumper that was on the helicopter at the beginning. I don’t know what that would have added to the movie but I am so glad that they decided to leave it out.
- The finish: The final 5 minutes showing places kill the zombies is better than the 1 hour prior of Brad Pitt taking a shot and having a Pepsi. I’ve never seen a movie try so hard to set up for a sequel when it should have just had a good ending instead.
Rating: 3.25/5
