World War Z, 2013.
Directed by Marc Forster.
Starring Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, Fana Mokoena, James Badge Dale, David Morse, Matthew Fox, Abigail Hargrove, Sterling Jerins, and Fabrizio Zacharee Guidoas.
SYNOPSIS:
United Nations employee Gerry Lane traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to destroy humanity itself.
World War Z is another entry in the zombie genre. However, this particular film does things a little differently. Brad Pitt stars as Gerry Lane, a former United Nations employee who is now retired. On a day out with his wife (Mireille Enos) and daughters, chaos starts to ensure in what appears to be a zombie outbreak. Gerry and his family manage to get rescued but Gerry is soon thrust into action to investigate this mysterious disease and possibly find a cure.
My initial reaction from the first trailer was that World War Z would be just another generic summer film with lots of special effects and nothing else going for it. So I was surprised to see that this is actually quite an entertaining film. A lot can be said about what’s good in the film but what impressed me the most were the zombies themselves. The makeup and the actions of these zombies are surprisingly frightening, and that’s very rare to find nowadays outside of the zombies on The Walking Dead. Director Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace) keeps things fast paced and edge of your seat intense – it only takes about fifteen minutes for things to get going and the film doesn’t let up until the end.
It’s no surprise that Brad Pitt gives a good performance here. This looked as if it would be a role that Pitt would just sleepwalk through but he actually puts some real emotion into his character which makes you want to see him survive this pandemic that’s going on. Even though this is mostly Pitt’s show, the supporting cast here – Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale and David Morse – also do a good job, and even the girls who play Pitt’s daughters (Sterling Jerins and Abigail Hargrove) give a couple good performances too.
While there is plenty to enjoy in World War Z there were some things I had problems with. For one there are some moments where the CGI looks pretty bad. It’s not bad throughout the entire film, but there are moments here and there involving the zombies where it just looks a little off. Another thing I wasn’t crazy about was the ending. The conclusion makes sense but it felt like the solution created a new set of problems. It didn’t help matters that it ended with an obvious hope for a sequel, which is something I’ve never really liked.
Overall, World War Z is a surprisingly tense and entertaining action movie. While the movie does suffer from a weak ending and some spotty CG, Brad Pitt gives a good performance and Forster’s direction helps to make this worth seeing.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Jake Peffer
Originally published October 21, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
