World War Z - Film Review
Nov. 4th, 2013 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat[Decided to take today off, since we get election day off - for a four day weekend. Haven't done much due to the fact that I'm having digestive issues.]
Just finished watching World War Z starring Brad Pitt and directed by Pitt. And it's a surprisingly good movie. Sort of Contagion plus 28 Days with zombies. Also, it has to be the first time I've ever seen zombies on a 747 Plane at 2000 feet.
Rather enjoyed it. It was about solving the virus and finding a way of combating it and the zombies, as opposed to the horrible things people do to each other and/or five to six people trying to survive a zombie attack in a remote local, which let's face it has been done to death by now. After The Walking Dead and Night of the Living Dead and 28 Days, not to mention Resident Evil - there's not much else you can do with the whole "let's just kill as many zombies as possible and hope we'll survive" motif.
World War Z - goes a different route. For one thing, the hero is an EX-UN investigator, who worked in the most dangerous places in the world - investigating problems for the UN. He went into areas no one else did. He left his job to be with his family, wife and two daughters. The UN rescues them from Philadephia which becomes overrun by "zombies" and in return for protecting his family, Gerry (Brad Pitt) agrees to accompany a leading neruologist/pathologist in a hunt for the cause of the disease, in order to find a way of fighting it or curing it.
Pitt's character eventually becomes accompanied by a young female Isralie solider named Zeke (I think that's her name, didn't have close-captioning on). And she's a kick-ass character.
Although this is mainly an action/puzzle solving film not a character driven one - so we aren't told a lot about the characters. But all of them are well-acted, there's diversity in casting choices, and they are well-rounded. Also, no villains. Just people. The villain is the virus.
Like Contagion - it's never quite clear where the "rabid zombie" virus came from or what created it. The focus of the film is on finding a way to fight it.
The film held my attention, wasn't that gory or that scary. Normally I find these films hard to watch. I don't like gore and scare easily. So if you've watched "The Walking Dead", this won't bother you in the slightest. It does have startle moments though...that make you jump.
What was a welcome change - was little emphasis on gore or blood and guts. Normally zombie movies are incredibly gory.
It's fast paced. Performances are stellar. Dialogue is natural and on target. And it's rather fun in places - ie. The Zombies on the Plane.
Overall rating? A-
Just finished watching World War Z starring Brad Pitt and directed by Pitt. And it's a surprisingly good movie. Sort of Contagion plus 28 Days with zombies. Also, it has to be the first time I've ever seen zombies on a 747 Plane at 2000 feet.
Rather enjoyed it. It was about solving the virus and finding a way of combating it and the zombies, as opposed to the horrible things people do to each other and/or five to six people trying to survive a zombie attack in a remote local, which let's face it has been done to death by now. After The Walking Dead and Night of the Living Dead and 28 Days, not to mention Resident Evil - there's not much else you can do with the whole "let's just kill as many zombies as possible and hope we'll survive" motif.
World War Z - goes a different route. For one thing, the hero is an EX-UN investigator, who worked in the most dangerous places in the world - investigating problems for the UN. He went into areas no one else did. He left his job to be with his family, wife and two daughters. The UN rescues them from Philadephia which becomes overrun by "zombies" and in return for protecting his family, Gerry (Brad Pitt) agrees to accompany a leading neruologist/pathologist in a hunt for the cause of the disease, in order to find a way of fighting it or curing it.
Pitt's character eventually becomes accompanied by a young female Isralie solider named Zeke (I think that's her name, didn't have close-captioning on). And she's a kick-ass character.
Although this is mainly an action/puzzle solving film not a character driven one - so we aren't told a lot about the characters. But all of them are well-acted, there's diversity in casting choices, and they are well-rounded. Also, no villains. Just people. The villain is the virus.
Like Contagion - it's never quite clear where the "rabid zombie" virus came from or what created it. The focus of the film is on finding a way to fight it.
The film held my attention, wasn't that gory or that scary. Normally I find these films hard to watch. I don't like gore and scare easily. So if you've watched "The Walking Dead", this won't bother you in the slightest. It does have startle moments though...that make you jump.
What was a welcome change - was little emphasis on gore or blood and guts. Normally zombie movies are incredibly gory.
It's fast paced. Performances are stellar. Dialogue is natural and on target. And it's rather fun in places - ie. The Zombies on the Plane.
Overall rating? A-
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no subject
Date: 2013-11-05 01:43 pm (UTC)I agree that every adaptation needs to be an adaptation - ie you can't have the exact same story as the book, you have to cut some bits, add some bits, etc. But when you make an adaptation of a successful book that does something new with an old story, puts the focus on something other than the traditional hero role, looks at something more than just how this one person handles the situation, takes into account that the world is more than just the country it's produced in... and you cut everything except the actual title, then much like the possible future Buffy reboot, I reserve the right to call it a pity.
But maybe I should see it before I continue that argument. :)
no subject
Date: 2013-11-05 01:58 pm (UTC)I can tell you this there's a montage at the beginning of various events leading up to it, then it zeroes in on specific story of Gerry. Now whether this was a story in the book or a combination of stories or merging of characters? I couldn't say.
I really just saw it as a really interesting and compelling zombie movie. (With the caveat, that I am not a fan of zombie movies or the zombie genre and find them difficult to watch and not that entertaining.) It's rare that I like a zombie movie. There's only a few that I enjoyed. But I watched it knowing literally nothing about the book other than the fact that it was about a zombie plague, difficult to film, and basically just various interviews of different people in different situations dealing with the plague across the world.
From the description and what I saw in the book stores flipping through it - the book appeared to be the book version of a news documentary - or told in that narrative style. (And since I'm not a fan of the fake documentary narrative style, I was rather relieved they chose not to try that approach. I know I'm in the minority on this - but I find tv shows that do it, films that do it, and books that do it - highly annoying. I get very frustrated with the style. But I'm also not a fan of non-fictional documentaries unless they are done by Ken Burns who seems to understand that watching a bunch of talking heads gets really boring after a while.)