When coming out of the theater I tried to tie up my thoughts
and feelings on the somewhat anticipated “World War Z”, based on the
bestselling novel of the same name. The
question I kept asking myself was “what is this supposed to be about?” Is it about multicultural government
cooperation against a mass-destructive threat? Is it about the reoccurring
paranoia of possible mini-pandemics like SARS or H1N1(aka the swine flu) ?
Perhaps it’s a vague allegory about the unwinnable war on terror and perhaps
zombies are supposed to stand in for the ambiguity and ubiquity of nationalist
extremism. Or maybe, and probably more likely,
perhaps this movie isn’t really about anything.
Having
reportedly suffered a number of production issues, including undergoing many
rewrites, reshoots and going over budget, it seemed early on that this film
might have bitten off more than it could chew with its popular source material.
However, Brad Pitt’s involvement was somewhat reassuring, as he usually doesn’t
slum it in low-brow genre entertainment and the early trailers looked promising. But having now seen the movie it looks like
those trailers were more than a little misleading and as it turns out,
apparently Brad Pitt isn’t above
slumming it in low-brow genre entertainment after all—both of which would be
fine if “World War Z” hadn’t been so regrettably underwhelming.
Pitt
stars as Gerry Lane, a suburban family man, supporting his dutiful wife Karin
(Merielle Enos) and their two younger daughters. After breakfast, on the way to work, they get
stopped in traffic, where they are overcome by a full-fledged zombie outbreak that
has begun to take hold of their entire city, as well as the entire world. After
losing their vehicles and struggling to find safety, as an ex-ground agent of
the UN, Gerry makes a few calls and has his family protected in a well-guarded
military base. Somewhat against his
will, he then volunteers to travel the globe looking for the source of this
fast-acting virus as well as a possible cure.
Even if
it barely peeks above average, “World War Z” isn’t offensively bad and it does
have a few moments worthy of praise. Brad
Pitt brings his Brad Pitt to the table and occasionally he is able to elevate
the monotony of this totally pedestrian screenplay. The opening scene on the freeway immediately throws
you into the action and starts the war drums early, even if it’s at the expense
of the character development, crucially
needed to care about our hero or his worried family. Likewise, a suspenseful
set-piece in the last twenty minutes of the movie, set in a conveniently
located disease research facility in Whales,
is fairly well shot and edited and manages to remind you that yes, you
are in fact watching horror movie, even if by then it is far too little too
late. And lastly, the script does tease some interesting themes and politics,
even if it’s only because those ideas came attached to all of the superior
zombie/horror movies this film lazily borrows from (“28 Days Later”, “Day of
the Dead”, “War of the Worlds”, “Contagion” etc...) .
As I
was watching this, having not read the book in which it was based, I just found
myself going through the motions with this episodic plot as Pitt and company
have to level up from country to country and continent to continent, like the
players in a survival video game—some of which are actually more narratively
ambitious than this multi-million dollar disaster yawn. It’s not an altogether failure but it’s not
really fun or stylish—in part because of its aim for gritty docudrama
realism—and more troubling, it isn’t really scary—in part because of its aim
for a bizarrely incongruent PG-13 rating. All of which leaves “World War Z” entirely
passable but equally disposable.
Grade: C-
Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/June-2013
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