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World War Z quickly gets you into the action after a brief introduction to Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) and plus his wife Karin and two daughters (all played by no-one famous). While stuck in a traffic jam, taking the children to school, a policeman races by on a motorbike and takes off the car’s wing mirror. Gerry gets out, but the next policeman shouts at him to get back in his car.
Soon after, life changes for the worse as all hell breaks out and they soon have to abandon the car from a camper van. All the while, zombies have come from nowhere, for no explicable reason, and are running about turning other people into zombies by biting them. But while most people stay at home, as the emergency broadcast recommends they stay in doors (cue the imminent off-screen demise of one family after they choose this option), the Lanes head off elsewhere, where Martial Law looks set to be declared as people head for the supermarket to take what they can find. For all you know, there’s nothing left but cans of wadded beef.
After holing up in a tower block for the night, the family are picked up on the roof by a helicopter after Gerry has been able to speak to a contact at the U.N. and get them all on board an aircraft carrier and, thankfully, the family after left behind on there, a mere 30 minutes into the film, as Gerry heads off to help the army do what they need to do, so I was glad he doesn’t have to keep a couple of snotty kids in tow.
When it comes to the certificate of this film, for one thing I was glad that it was a 15. Too many films, these days, are geared towards a kiddie-friendly 12-certificate, often being censored for theatrical viewing in the process, such as A Good Day To Die Hard and The Hunger Games, so one of the draws for me was that it wasn’t going to be dumbed-down in this way. However, when I watched the film, I struggled to see anything that required a 15. Not a single person says the f-word, which is usually the easy way most films guarantee a 12-certificate since, in the USA, the PG-13 equivalent is often secured as a PG means box-office death unless they’re producing a CGI film for kids. While for the rest of the film, there’s precious little threat from the zombies. Sure, they quickly manage to scale a wall into a compound – in one of the better action sequences featured (below) – but getting lots of individuals on screen at once just reminds me of something from the Lord of the Rings films, and those are no higher than a 12.
The only thing I can imagine is that Tolkein’s world is one of fantasy whereas, here, the threat is against the human race. The BBFC’s site claims the rating is for “sustained threat and strong violence”, but while I didn’t feel like I saw anything particularly strong, the word “sustained” is more like “the film goes on for two hours and really needs a good editing”.
In fact, there’s some painfully poor editing in this film as well. Before I knew it, Brad Pitt and co had quickly taken off in the camper van before I’d realised they’d got in one, and later, when a woman has her hand hacked off, I only saw the subsequent result when it was being bandaged up. I don’t remember dropping off, so this moment seemed to have completely passed me by. That said, the violence also feels spoiled by having anything interesting happen off-screen, so that may well have a part to play in the letter moment.
Another problem with this film is that there’s an awful lot of muffled speech. I might have to see it again to catch all of the dialogue, if I can stand to watch it again. Don’t the directors of films actually listen back to their audio?
And in addition to Marco Beltrami’s soundtrack, there’s music from Muse’s Matt Bellamy, not that you’d get that impression from what we hear.
Go to page 2 for my conclusions.
Overall, it soon became clear that for something that’s been so hyped – and for over a year – World War Z is a major disappointment. There is some zombie action which is very well done, as described above, while earlier, the action camera work is done like a cameraman with Parkinson’s who’s jumping about on a space hopper. They can’t even organise a decent conclusion here, either. And, like Man of Steel, there’s a complete lack of humour on display, all of which made me feel, if you want to do a zombie film these days, Edgar Wright is your man, as proved in Shaun of the Dead.
Acting-wise, no-one really does much to write home about. Brad Pitt does what he does, his screen family tag along, and the only other two actors who stood out did so because they made me think “Hey, that’s….!”, namely The Thick Of It‘s Peter Capaldi as a doctor from the World Health Organisation (thus named “W.H.O. Doctor”) and the ubiquitous David Morse (below), who turns up in a five-minute cameo. Shame he wasn’t around for longer. John Gordon Sinclair‘s appearance as a Navy SEAL Commander must’ve been a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it… and I must’ve blinked.
And a couple of other asides. While wifey is stuck on the aircraft carrier and is given a mobile phone to communicate with hubby, she types his number in as ‘Gerry’. Fair enough, but she does this with a phone’s usual hackneyed keypad and while the last number would go through W, X, Y and Z, hers somehow skips straight from W to Y. Don’t they have “X” in the U.S. alphabet?
Also, while I’m a fan of 3D films, I saw this particular one in 2D. The reason for that was because, like a lot of summer blockbusters including Man of Steel, The Wolverine, Star Trek Into Darkness and a lot of Pacific Rim, World War Z wasn’t even filmed in 3D. It was all done in post-production.
So what’s the point of paying extra for something that’s fake?
The director of this movie is Marc Forster. The last film I saw from him was 2008’s Quantum of Solace which, at the time, was the worst Bond movie made to date, and the shortest at 106 minutes. Somehow he managed to make a film which was even less worthy in World War Z. Still, at least his Bond crown has been beaten following Sam Mendes’ bore-fest, the 143-minute yawn-a-thon that was Skyfall.
Cert: 
Running time: 116 minutes
Year: 2013
Released: June 21st 2013
Widescreen: 2.35:1 (ARRIRAW (2.8K))
Rating: 5/10
Director: Marc Forster
Producers: Ian Bryce, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Brad Pitt
Screenplay: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof (based on the book by Max Brooks)
Music: Marco Beltrami
Additional Music: Matt Bellamy
Cast:
Gerry Lane: Brad Pitt
Karin Lane: Mireille Enos
Segen: Daniella Kertesz
Captain Speke: James Badge Dale
Jurgen Warmbrunn: Ludi Boeken
Parajumper: Matthew Fox
Thierry Umutoni: Fana Mokoena
Ex-CIA Agent: David Morse
Andrew Fassbach: Elyes Gabel
W.H.O. Doctor: Peter Capaldi
Constance Lane: Sterling Jerins
Rachel Lane: Abigail Hargrove
Tomas: Fabrizio Zacharee Guido
Naval Commander: David Andrews
Navy SEAL Commander: John Gordon Sinclair
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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