World War Z Review – The Zombie Apocalypse Thriller of The Year
When you think Zombie’s you may think Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days After, or Day of the Dead. Well what if your worst nightmare came true and an outbreak like Sars lead to a pandemic virus that killed the population in rapid proportions. What would you do? Where would you go? And would you survive?
World War Z explores that in depth and takes you inside a normal American family household doing their daily routine until the morning is turned upside down. Director Marc Forster wastes little time in plunging Lane, wife Karen (Mireille Enos) and their two daughters into the action. A traffic jam in Philadelphia morphs into something much worse. Not knowing what is happening Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) quickly takes his family fleas the city, trying to survive until Lane’s old U.N. colleague, Under Secretary Thierry Umutoni (Fana Mokoena), can extract them.
The film is loosely based on the 2006 novel, “World which takes its inspiration from Studs Terkel‘s “The Good War,” a collection of interviews about WWII and gives it a spin so to speak. Within minutes of the opening credits World War Z takes off like a roller-coaster from zero to 60, moving with impressive efficiency. The over-all film is masterfully paced with a storyline that is so real it gives me chills just thinking if this ever happened what would I do? Just imagine a global pandemic of undead predators infected with god-knows-what is nearly as fleet as its swarms of zombies.
Then comes the question, where do I hide and is there anywhere safe? The movie uses the obvious when spreading the virus and that is the airline industry. Just like HIV, Sars and any major infectious disease that has globally spread in the past, WWZ uses the same theory. The film takes the virus and then spreads it with outbreaks surfacing early in the morning in all major cities, basically after the first airlines have landed at their final destinations. This leads us to, U.N. investigator Gerry (Pitt) who forced back into the world of mayhem to find the origin of the epidemic and hopefully find a cure or make a vaccine to save the world and his family.
We quickly follow Lane to North Korea with a whip-smart virologist (Elyes Gabel) who refers to Mother Nature as a “serial killer” in one of the movies finest lines. There is another vital line in the movie that reveals that Mother Nature’s most aggressive moments may also be her weakness. As Lane is on his mission to save the world, subtle clues are revealed that helps to lead Gerry to some understanding of the catastrophe and a solution.
World War Z infects theaters with its Zombie plague in 2D and 3D, but the 3D in the film is minimal, since Django Unchained cinematographer Robert Richardson approach is more of a hand-held style that helps the intensity, and intimacy that makes the film a masterpiece.
Unlike most Zombie horror films, World War Z has an intelligent tone that makes this movie hard to ignore. Think 2011’s viral outbreak films Contagion, which stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon and then put the virus on a massive steroid and you have World War Z. Like Danny Boyle‘s emotionally rattling drama “28 Days Later,” WWZ is riveting, spin-chilling and very real. The movie touches on losing loved ones in a zombie pandemic would extremely tragic and emotionally draining while still trying to survive and not get infected. Bottom line Zombies have no mercy and they do not discriminated when spreading the virus or killing.
If you love Brad Pitt, extreme action, heart stopping thrills and zombies then World War Z is your summer blockbuster. Beware to be scared, because zombies are coming!
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I am going to see this joint.. -15