World War Zzzzzz: Did Anyone Else Not Like This Movie?

Yeah, I know. There’s no way I was the first person to come up with that headline to describe this movie. It’s too easy, but given the mostly positive reception of the Brad Pitt-led zombie thriller in recent weeks, I’m wondering. Was I the only person who didn’t like this movie?

And perhaps that’s not totally accurate. Maybe World War diz-Z would be more accurate, because director Marc Forster seemed to have a case of Zack Snyder-itis in making this movie, unable to hold the camera still for more than two seconds during any of the movies several set action pieces.*

*When Forster settled down for Pitt’s journey to B-Wing in the movie’s final act—during the last 20 minutes or so, the movie actually got pretty good.

Brad Pitt is certainly satisfied with “World War Z.” It made $66 million in the US on opening weekend.

From the get-go of World War Z, the action picked up and refused to slow down. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the movie’s attempted back-story of Gerry Lane (Pitt) and his family felt very shoddily done. I knew that Gerry cared about his family, and that was about it.

He was also apparently the only person the US military could find to help them figure out what was going on and to solve it. The movie then proceeds to take Pitt to three different locations, following various leads, as he tries to fix the problem.

Personally, I wish the movie had left out every attempt at meaningful dialogue and just blown things up, crashed things and toppled bodies over each other for two hours. Because the dialogue we were left with was extremely cheesy/generic/boring/forgetful, and the movie suffered for it.

Ignoring the script, the movie’s action scenes/zombie attacks were a sight to behold. The main thing with zombies is that they are perpetually slow and cumbersome—throughout most of television and film history. However, World War Z sped them up about 100 times, which was something I rather enjoyed.

Despite the fact that the movie gave no explanation as to where the zombie virus came from, it was fairly clear on how easy it was for it to spread.* This at least gave the action scenes some sort of stakes, but at the same time, didn’t make the movie any different than any other crappy zombie movie or television show.

*This was conveniently explained through a talking toy that just happened to start counting right as Gerry watched a person be bitten by a zombie.

Like I said, the action scenes were really cool, and I give the movie credit for that. I just didn’t feel there was enough of a story going on for me to really care what was happening. The one downside of the action scenes was that most of the really cool sequences (zombies stacking on top of each other, zombies taking down helicopter) were given away in the film’s previews. *

*Granted, if you haven’t seen the previews before seeing the movie, they are awesome.

When the camera settled down for the final sequence when Brad Pitt had to journey across the medical facility—through zombies—to inject himself with an impromptu vaccine that would camouflage him from the virus, the movie got pretty good.

Then, the cheesy ending begging for producers to sign on for a sequel happened (this worked by the way), and I remembered how much I hated the first hour and a half of the movie.

Overall, the special effects and the penultimate scene made the movie worthwhile, but it is certainly heavily flawed. It’s definitely worth seeing though.

2.5/5 stars

A few things before I go:

• The plane crash that Gerry and Segen (the female soldier) got into was extremely unrealistic, and there is no way either of them would have survived that crash. Moreover, they landed almost exactly where they were planning on going anyways, which—come on. That entire sequence was beyond ridiculous.
• Did the Jews not sing that song every morning to celebrate the fact that they were safe from zombies? If so, the zombies would have already climbed over and infected them all. I found it funny that Brad Pitt happened to be there on the day that they sung/were attacked.
• Alright, it wasn’t exactly well-established that Gerry was supposed to be a genius. So, how did he figure out by looking at a burnt-up zombie room and two people surpassed in the rampage that people with terminal illnesses were immune?
• Also, how in the world is it efficient to inject every person on Earth with a terminal illness? Doesn’t it have to be enough of a terminal illness to actually set off the zombies? It can’t be good for every single person in the world to have a terminal illness!!!!

Man, I am not looking forward to World War Zz, or World War Z 2, or World War (letter after Z). Here’s hoping it doesn’t get a terrible Star Trek Into Darkness title like World War Z: The Battle for Planet Earth.

What did everyone else think?