Rating of
1.5/4
Review: World War Z
MikePA - wrote on 06/24/13
My expectations for World War Z were fair, but I wasn't too excited considering all of the production issues that ensued, which is usually a bad sign. But positive reviews made me hopeful, and because of that I chose Brad Pitt battling zombies over monsters bouncing around in college. I guess I'm the minority here, but I really wished I had chosen the monsters. I bet for every time I yawned in World War Z I would have laughed aloud two or three times in Monsters University.
I've never read the novel, so I'm unable to differentiate between that and the film. But from what I've read, World War Z isn't that faithful of an adaptation. So fans of the book may be disappointed. But coming out of the film as an average moviegoer, the best thing I could honestly say about the film is that Brad Pitt makes for one hell of a hero. His performance is strong and convincing enough to be an effective latch to hang on to through the course of the film, even though his character has about as much depth as a toothpick. Bravo, Brad Pitt.
The plot is simple and passable enough, but it's difficult to get totally engrossed in it. Brad Pitt goes from here to there and from there to here the entire film, and while that's totally fine for those who like it, for me the more that happened the more I just didn't care. It seriously became a very boring and flat movie experience for me. The opening sequence, which is a huge zombie outbreak in Philadelphia, never really gripped me or put me in that tense situation like I felt it was trying to. We barely got to know any of the characters - the most development we got was them making pancakes in the morning - which is why it didn't work for me on a dramatic level. Another thing, the frantic editing almost completely took me out of it. It was reminiscent of the opening sequence in that horrid Quantum of Solace (made by the same director, Marc Forster). How am I supposed to feel uneasy and tense when I can't even see what the fuck is going on?
What's there of the family relationship feels so empty and completely devoid of heart. It just feels like a big soulless spectacle with a bunch of flashy zombie stuff (which isn't even satisfying on that level, but I'll talk about that later) without any true humanity. If the filmmakers would have focused on developing the characters as a family and tried to pull some true, realistic emotions out between them, this could have been a good, intense film. Instead we're traveling around the world with some guy we barely know running away from cheesy-looking swarms of zombies.
Even the action sequences can't compensate for the shitty character development and pure soullessness of it all. I already discussed the failings of the opening sequence. And by time I got to other parts of the world, I just didn't care anymore. The scenes in Jerusalem were nicely shot, ok, but nothing raised a single pulse. Same thing goes for that airplane sequence, which was nicely made but not nearly as intense for me as people made it out to be. My favorite scene was the climax. It's the most suspenseful segment in the film, and by far scariest and most entertaining that the film has to offer - even if it's not THAT scary. It's still a pretty cool scene.
But that ending isn't enough to save the earlier 100 boring minutes. It's not that much fun as a summer film. It fails as an actioner, it fails as a horror, and ultimately fails in the end. I left the theater with an unfortunate shrug. It's, in my opinion, the biggest disappointment of 2013 thus far.
1.5/4
