World War Z Movie Review

First of all, let me just say that this film is not a direct adaptation of the best-selling book by Max Brooks. This has been clarified way before the first trailer ever came out. Even though this is the case, the film still did very well in incorporating some of the items from the book.

World War Z is a fast-paced, in-your face family thriller. Yes, you heard it right, family. This is a zombie film but the story’s foundation was built through the idea of family. This is one of the reasons why this film stands out from past zombie films.

Zombie films tend to focus more on survival. Like barricading houses, slowly moving from place to place and scavenging for food while fighting hordes of the undead. In World War Z, the global attack has just started and the government is busy looking for a cure to stop it. This is the main plot of the film. Like in the book, certain characters explained that they were looking for Patient Zero, the very first to have been infected, while trying to make a cure. In the film, Brad Pitt is tasked to find this person and the story follows his character as he goes from country to country.

One thing that makes World War Z work are the cast. Brad Pitt plays Gerry Lane, a retired UN Investigator and now a full pledged dad. Pitt is believable in this role. His face is haggard and he is quite far from his looks as one of the hottest men in the world. He is a family man and he is believable in that role. He is the hero of the film but he doesn’t look like the macho, can survive anything hero. He is vulnerable and you can sense his fear. Fear of leaving his family and the fear of going into the unknown.

His wife, played by The Killing’s Mireille Enos has a great on screen chemistry with Pitt. She portrays a wife who has worried about her family before. So you can see when things hit the fan that she can focus on keeping her family alive while maintaining a calm exterior. But she also gets worried especially when Gerry leaves. Her emotions are visible throughout the film which makes the film more realistic.

The rest of the cast are in some ways cameos. Actors like Matthew Fox, David Morse and James Badge Dale play small roles just for specific scenes. In relation to the books, they are the interviewees. But even if they appear in just a small fraction of the film, they stand out. Their characters truly reflect the trouble and fear that is surrounding them.

World War Z is still about zombies. The only difference with the book is that in the film, the zombies move fast and they swarm. This makes the film exciting as you can feel them coming closer and blocking every exit. One of the best sequences in the film is when Jerusalem was taken over. Zombies scaling high walls and diving to their demise just to get a bite at the humans below makes one hell of an exhilarating scene. One thing missing though is the gore. When you talk zombies, you expect flesh rotting, or even a lot of blood. But here, all we get to see are some changes in the skin and eyes and not a lot of blood. This is due to the PG 13 rating the studios wanted. There were a lot of things fans of book, like me, wanted to see in the film. Like what happened in India or zombies eating people. Here, the zombies just bite and then you turn. No more of those blood pulsing out of necks or bodies eaten in half scattered all over the road. When you want that, you’ll fair better watching The Walking Dead. Another thing is that they should have shown the Battle of Yonkers or even showed snippets of it. That was one of the critical parts in the book.

The score brings a lot to the film. Marco Beltrami’s haunting music brings an added life to the chaos. Even the simplest dialogue has an added chill because of his score. The music is dramatic in a since that it echoes success and defeat at the same time. It just brings chills and excitement to an already exhilarating film.

World War Z in a way may disappoint fans of the book. But it gets the job done. Story wise, it delivers a strong plot which is carefully told while searching for answers. The ending, for me was well crafted if they ever plan a sequel. You see, in the book, the war against the undead all over the world were told by person’s who lived and experienced it. Here, they just showed small clips from news reports. So if a sequel were to be made, expect to see a lot of action in the form of battles of the horde and the humans.

World War Z brings in the excitement of a zombie film and the flavors of a political drama. A lot of key issues were used but like the doctor in the film said, they are small crumbs that you may fail to realized their importance.

World War Z for me is one of the best adaptation/ iteration of zombies to date. It focuses on the human side and their quest for answers rather than their quest for survival. I give it 8 out 10.