Cole's Take On: WORLD WAR Z

Cole's Rating: ★★

Jesse's Rating: ★★★

Director: Marc Forster 
Year: 2013

Cast: Brad Pitt, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox

Genre: Action/Drama/Horror

MPAA Rating: PG-13

        I’ve come to realize that whenever I watch any zombie flick—whether it be a movie or television show—that I’ve been spoiled by The Walking Dead. In fact, that may very well be my favorite show of all time (I have the poster hung up in my room). Based on my experiences, what I can say is this: fans of the show will be tremendously disappointed with this dud. As World War Z began, Brad Pitt’s character was established as a family figure, when the zombies began to flood the city like a tsunami with no warning whatsoever. The family then goes through a series of formulaic zombie-apocalypse actions which include robbing a convenience store (which beheld one of the movie’s greatest scenes), seeking refuge, and fightin’ some zombies. Pitt’s character gets recruited to do some of the government’s work to help the country’s effort; go figure.

        Money played two roles in the casting of Brad Pitt; they cast him for money (box office); and he did it for money. I mean he may as well have been a zombie; he had about as much soul as one. Here he gives an astonishingly passionless performance to an already underdeveloped character. It’s unfortunate, too, when he’s the only character you have to care about. I figured that I may as well appreciate the zombie sequences as much as possible, but when they aren’t as scary, or nearly well done, as scenes in The Walking Dead, I was utterly disappointed. So I’ll say this: you couldn’t pay me to care whether or not Pitt’s character lived, or what happened to him. And based on what I saw, it’s entirely deserving of that statement.

        What’s even worse than the deadening performance was the bland screenplay. I never knew a zombie movie could lack vitality like this one did. Everything that they were saying had already been said; everything that they were doing had already been done; and worst of all, both of those things weren’t incredibly exciting—even if they had already been done. This excludes, however, the heart-racing conclusion which contained the only 20 minutes of the movie that kept my attention. A critic from the Boston Herald titled his review on World War Z: “‘World War’ zzzzzz Brad Pitt’s movie is a snore”. Well put.

        I haven’t read the whole thing, but Max Brooks’ novel is a whole-heck-of-a-lot better than this snoozer. And from what I saw, the movie is hardly loyal. A scene I read in the book illustrates lesser-privileged people rioting against greater-privileged people in a battle for safety (shelter) from the zombie apocalypse. Now, I’m not exactly sure why the screenplay writers excluded this from the movie—or if they even read the book—but I guarantee that it could have brought some originality to the table, which is something that World War Z lacks. This goes without mentioning other incredible aspects of the novel. 

        To close, I’ll throw a few extra one-liner descriptions of the movie that I wrote down as I was watching it: 1. When the zombies aren’t on screen, not that they are impressive anyhow, the movie is as dry and bland as Pitt’s performance; I guess you have the screenplay to thank for that. 2. I know that a movie is good—or relatively good—if I can watch it, and forget that I’m watching it and become absorbed into the characters and what’s happening on screen; that didn’t happened once here. 3. Zombie-movie-lovers and fans of the book beware! World War Z is an upsetting disappointment!

-Written by Cole Pollyea

Click here for Jesse's take on World War Z