Yes, I read the book and loved it. Yes, I was disappointed to hear the movie had nothing to do with the book (turns out this is half true). No, I wasn't surprised to hear there were production woes. At a certain point I stopped caring about all of that and just wanted to see it. I'm not that much of a zombie purist and I don't care if they sprint and climb up over each other like ants. Let the other nerds work themselves up over that stuff.
The general consensus is that the first hour is good. Really good. Zombies have been done over and over since 28 Days Later. The challenge is to keep it fresh. The term Holy Grail of indie filmmaking came to mind while watching it. Most people have no idea how many indie zombie films get made every year. That's the real spreading plague. Don't let your friends get bit by the zombie movie bug. Each and every one of them is terrible. These poor people pour their hearts and souls, corn syrup and food coloring, nights and weekends into making these things that are just painful to watch. The Holy Grail of indie film making at this point is to make a watchable, original, thought provoking zombie film that doesn't take place in a farm house, mall, cabin or hospital with uninspired archetype characters played by amateur actors. For the most part, World War Z manages to avoid all the pitfalls and is actually kind of cool.
Three Good Things
• The pacing is good at first. They get right to the action. There's moments to catch your breath, and then they get right back into it. There's some really clever stuff. How long does it take to turn into a
zombie? How do you use that if you're conscious and aware? I liked it.
• It has the most accurate depiction of Special Forces guys I've ever seen in a movie. They're more believable than Zero Dark Thirty. Most movies reference other movies and made up hokey garbage to characterize Special Forces. The truth is they're very smart. Some of them have PhD's. They're jocks with a plan. They don't give up easy and run into a challenge headfirst and with pleasure. Some of them are very redneck. And they're cool as shit. They don't panic like Bill Paxton in Aliens. World War Z does it right.
• I felt like it maintained the spirit of the book, which to me was a global view of a zombie apocalypse. WWZ has more than just a map with red circles growing on it while a number representing the world's population shrinks. That's in there, it's unavoidable. But going from the US to Korea to Israel, and seeing zombies from a military helicopter's point of view (which is a great representation of world leaders' perspectives) came together for me. That kind of thing is very difficult for the indie guys to do well.
Three Bad Things
• Brad Pitt's wife and kids are awful. Just generic. How many times can you pat a kid on the head and stroke their hair? They could have done better.
• It's 2013. Can we please stop having characters keep functioning through ridiculous injuries? That may have needed a spoiler alert.
• The ending. The very ending. If you read the Vanity Fair article, then you'll know they got the guy from Lost to come in and rewrite the ending. Looking back now, it has a very Lost flavor to it. The last 20 minutes, meh... take it or leave it. That was where my zombie purist came in and started arguing a little. I haven't quite finished the debate on that. I can say if the first 20 minutes are Left 4 Dead, then the last 20 minutes are very Resident Evil. Actually you can insert a lot of video games there. I should write something about the game-etization of movies at some point.
The very very ending came close to ruining the whole thing. I'm being uncharacteristically optimistic. That is to say, I'm still rooting for the movie.
I'm still rooting for The Purge as well. I left that thinking its sequels will have an easy time exploring that world with other stories and other characters. It wasn't awful. But what it means is they made a really cool world, but told the wrong story with the wrong characters. By most people's standards, that could be considered a failure. In the case of WWZ they didn't even create the world. They bought it from Max Brooks. Still, I don't consider it an absolute failure. I hope they get a full trilogy out of it, put together by smarter people. There's so much material in that one book to easily match Lord of the Rings in running time. The likelihood of that happening, given how much $ they already sank into this one is probably pretty slim. The production problems aren't that hard to fix. Just have a damn script ready before you start shooting. That's Film Production 101.
That old line about how a movie should be a good story well told doesn't really apply here. People Attacked by Zombies! isn't really a movie headline anyone can buy anymore. There has to be more to it. The first season of Walking Dead knocked it out of the park. The story in World War Z is really just cool stuff happens, then more cool stuff happens. Michael Bay in South Park honestly came to mind while I was watching it. I don't care, though. It was still fun to watch.
Spoiler Alerts
• Bicycles. If you know you're shit about zombies, then you have a soft spot for bicycles. They do make an appearance.
• I would have included this in good things about the movie, but there's a spoiler alert involved so it's down here. BRILLIANT, absolutely set the standard for introducing the nerdy and annoying scientist and then getting rid of him, but also letting him influence the rest of the movie. It was like having Jeff Goldblum drop the juicy commentary in Jurassic Park in 45 seconds and then letting him get eaten. Don't let him survive, no one likes the uppity guy, don't let him come back. Just get rid of him and let the protagonist do his job.
• Again, read the Vanity Fair article. Consider reading after you see the movie. I didn't. If you do, then the real suspense comes not from when the zombies show up, but when the crew change happens. There's also reference to the alternate ending that's been shot. I'm so looking forward to seeing that in the bonus material on the DVD. Lobo. Just, lobo.
