When I first saw the trailer for “World War Z” I was stunned. My jaw dropped, my eyes wide open, and my brain partially exploded.
Not for the visuals or the action on the screen, but for one simple reason. Brad Pitt is acting in a zombie movie.
Peanut butter and jelly, Oreo’s and milk, Michael Bay and explosions. These are things that go together. Brad Pitt appearing in a zombie movie is like Metallica playing Polka music, like Christopher Walken playing Freddy Krueger (actually I’d like to see that), like seeing Bill Murray in a zombie movie (oh wait that actually happened).
Point is, you just never see an actor of this quality in a genre like this.
With that said, how was “World War Z”? Meh. Great opening, great second act, horrible main characters, horrible ending.
The film was partially based on the book, “World War Z” by Max Brooks. The book was a collection of stories and interviews by several characters that revolved around a zombie epidemic that plagued the world. The film focused on just one story throughout the series of events.
Brad Pitt (if you don’t know who Brad Pitt is, google him. You‘ll be amazed) plays Gerry Lane, an ex-investigative reporter for the United Nations who left to be with his wife, Mireille Enos (Gangster Squad), and two daughters (Abigail Hargrove and Sterling Jerins).
Of course, all this changes when the zombies invade. The family is very generic, there is absolutely no conflict between any of them throughout the film. Especially in the first act when their very survival is at stake. Pitt is pretty much playing a bland version of what could be a great action hero.
The things he does are well thought out and interesting, but my God, his dialogue is so boring.
He doesn’t get angry, he doesn’t get too worried, it’s just Pitt being Pitt in a weird way. The best acting/characters surprisingly come from the people Pitt meets on his travels. There’s an ex-CIA agent he meets in South Korea who tells him a story about what the North Koreans do to stop the zombies (It makes perfect sense).
There’s a quiet, but badass soldier that’s assigned to protect him in Jerusalem. Finally, a doctor that gives an amazing speech about mother nature, but meets what I think is the funniest demise in zombie movie history.
The zombies and effects in this movie are incredible. The zombies are like an evolved version of Zack Snyder’s zombies from his “Dawn of the Dead” remake. They’re threatening, they run, they leap, they’re hungry, and most importantly, there’s a lot of them.
I mean a lot.
The way they are shown attacking is like if they were a wave of humanity just coming down, destroying everything in their path. The action scene that takes place in Jerusalem is the highlight of the movie.
It’s so creepy and yet so awesome to see thousands of zombies climb over each other and scale the city walls. All in all, “World War Z” is a fun, action packed film, at least two-thirds of it is.
The last act and the sheer blandness of the lead characters during the down times were enough to hurt the film, not ruin it, but hurt it enough to the point where you kinda didn’t care what happened, just give me more zombies.
I give “World War Z” a two cackling Teeth Zombies out of four.