Movie Title: World War Z
Date Released: June 21st, 2013
Date Seen: June 29th, 2013
Seen with: Anna, Marcela, Hannah 1
Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review
A plague starts rapidly spreading across the world that causes people to go wild and crazy and rabid, appearing zombie-like according to one source. A former UN operative must get his family safely out the city, before going on his own journey to try and find a way to stop the spread, contain the spread, cure the spread, or really just anything that will help.
I’ve never read the book, so I won’t be able to compare – I have just heard that the movie is not at all like the book. I did find this link, and it seems to give a pretty good indication that yes, it is VERY different from the book.
The movie starts of kind of slow, with some unnecessary development with the kids, such as a daughter that has asthma (of course she does….), and is only used to show you one small unnecessary plot point about the nature of people during this time. The movie then turns into a kind of video game. Granted, it doesn’t feel as super video game-y as Resident Evil: Retribution, in that it doesn’t have blatantly obvious levels that the main character is funneled through – but it’s pretty close. The main character, Gerry Lane, keeps getting little puzzle pieces and breadcrumbs that lead him to one country, then another, then another, etc. I felt like I kept unlocking achievements or opened up a new level every time Gerry was talking to someone and managed to get the name of a different country in which to go zombie-cure-hunting. You get some cool characters that you meet for about 1 minute, thinking they are going to be important for all that you learn about them (again, the daughter with asthma), but then they never are.
The acting, is alright. It’s pretty much just Brad Pitt being serious Brad Pitt, making serious faces and staring at someone off camera. The UN Commander or whatever he was, Thierry Umutoni, played by Fana Mokoena, makes a lot of confused but serious faces, usually into a cell phone. The wife, Karin, played by Mireille Enos, makes a lot of “oh man, my husband is off saving the world and I’m left here completely safe with my children but I’m still sad” faces. There is one pretty awesome character, an Israeli girl, Segen, played by Daniella Kertesz. She’s very pretty and was fun to watch in this movie, despite the fact that she didn’t have very many lines – but she was there for a good part of it. Otherwise, the characters are pretty boring. Towards the beginning, dealing with the little girl with asthma, we did get one of my favorite scenes in the movie. The family goes to a supermarket to get stuff for the girl’s asthma, and we see how EVERYONE is reacting to the situation, guns, violence, but some pockets of decent human beings as well. I like those character studies, and it seems the book would have more of that than the action packed movie did.
Part 2 – In Depth Spoiler Ridden Review
You know, this movie called for a real hard suspension of belief. Not in the normal – ok believe that there are zombies way (which really isn’t too unbelievable that at some point a weird plague causing zombie like symptoms and rabid behavior could happen), but you know, believe that the zombies can smell your terminal-illness on you, while running full speed ahead at everything that moves. Believe that the Segen some how managed to not go into shock after a very crude field dressing of her bloody stump and then running across the entire city to an airport. Believe that when the plane crashed in Wales, without ANY navigation at all, and without a map, radio, or phone, and never having been told where the World Health Organization was (they told the pilot), that Segen and Gerry manage to find it. Believe that those people at the W.H.O. would have ACTUALLY let Segen and Gerry in, without knowing who they were. No freaking way.
I found the most believable stuff, again, the character study at the beginning at the supermarket. The one guy seemingly defending the pharmacy in the story, but then seeing that Gerry and the daughter weren’t there to loot it and were looking for one specific thing – he helps them out. I liked that. We also see just the complete insanity of everyone trying to help themselves, getting any food they can, or others getting only things they NEED. For example, we see the police man leave with what I thought was baby formula and another baby thing. I loved watching that. But, alas, it doesn’t last too long and we then get into the video game. Although, finding the inhaler could have been its own level as well.
Basically, this is a synopsis of the World War Z “video game” movie.
Level 1 – Find vehicle out of city
Level 2 – Find an inhaler to save child (optional: tell child to suck it up, as you’ve clearly said she’s made it through attacks without it before).
Optional objective failed. Inhaler obtained.
Level 3 – Find somewhere to stay safe for the night
Level 4 – Get to helicopter (Optional: Bring family from night before with you)
Optional objective partly completed. +1 party member – “Tomas”.
Level 5 – Choose – survive on own at refugee camp, or send husband to try and save world.
CHOICE MADE! YOU ARE GOING TO “SEND HUSBAND TO TRY AND SAVE THE WORLD”
Level 6 – Find information out in Korea. Must refuel plane before progressing to next level.
Level 7 – Find out information in “Israel”
Mission must be aborted. Continue to level 7.5
Level 7.5 – Escape the city of Jerusalem
+1 Party member: Segen
Level 8 – Find the World Health Organization
Level 9 – Get fatal infectious diseases from zombie infested wing, because you think that zombies can smell your immenient death.
Level 9.5 – To finish the mission, you must inject yourself, thus testing the validity of your claim.
Sucess! You are now immune to zombies! But also, now have an infectious disease inside of you, that we hope we can cure.
Level 10 – Return to family
So yep, that’s pretty much the movie, don’t get yourself all excited.
Overall: 6.5/10
If you like fast zombies see it, but otherwise, you can wait until it’s on Netflix to see the video-game esque movie that doesn’t satisfy you.