Wednesday, June 26, 2013

World War Z

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars Average: 3.5 of 5 stars (Live canary)


Dustin: World War Z is a globe-trotting, PG-13 zombie flick starring Brad Pitt--or, as he’s affectionately known to his Japanese fans, Burapi--as an infallible former UN employee charged with the daunting task of locating Patient Zero in a zombie apocalypse in hope of finding the secret to stopping the spread.

Nick: So, what did you think of WWZ?

Dustin: I thought it was about as good as a zombie blockbuster with mass-appeal could get. What it had in PG-13 tameness (well, tame for the genre), it made up for with originality.

Nick: Original in the fact that massive amounts of fake blood were not needed on set?

Dustin: It did a good job letting some things be left to the imagination, yes. But I thought the zombies were original too. They moved with superhuman speed and strength, which made them more formidable than the usual, slow-moving, brain-dead zombies of the George Romero films. While there’s something inherently creepy about a walking corpse, it doesn't make for a very daunting threat.

Nick: Not a lone zombie, but as a horde you don’t have much of a chance to survive. Unless you’re as cute as Brad Pitt.

Dustin: (For an in-depth discussion on why a zombie apocalypse would quickly fail, read this truly inspired Cracked article: "7 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Outbreak Would Fail (Quickly).")

Burapi’s character was a little too perfect in this film. Not only is he ruggedly handsome, he’s right about everything. He doesn't even have incorrect first hunches, like Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code. He even knows things he should have no reason for knowing, like the rough background of a Mossad officer and the exact direction to a WHO facility after surviving a plane crash. I liked him better in his other globe-trotting film, Babel, where he played an obnoxious “ugly American.” I somehow found that character more sympathetic.

Nick: The film really doesn't build up sympathy for any of its characters. The only one I felt anything for was the female Israeli soldier. The movie kind of plays like a Bond film, where our hero is always jetting off to another exotic location in order to find the MacGuffin, which will lead to him saving the world.

Dustin: That’s a good comparison, which didn't occur to me.

I think we both had problems at times with instances that were a little too convenient for the story to move forward. I especially heard you laughing when after the plane crashed in some Eastern European country, he is about five minutes' walking distance from the WHO facility and is able to make a beeline to it.

Nick: Yes! That plane crash is in the trailer, so nothing is being given away, but he is on one of his Bond missions to go to the WHO facility, the plane crashes and two minutes after we see he survived the plane crash, while extremely wounded (though not his gorgeous face), he somehow traverses enough landscape to make it to WHO only for another mission to be awaiting him.

Dustin: One moment in the plane crash scene reminded me of the Bollywood zombie comedy from earlier this year, Go Goa Gone. The movie is an offbeat send-up of Hollywood action films, with a lot of cheesy one-liners. In one scene, a zombie is trapped in the seat belt of a car, and the main badass says, “Seat belts DO save lives... Our lives!” After the plane crash in WWZ, a zombie is stuck in her seat belt, and I was waiting for the same line. I'd like to think Go Goa Gone and WWZ are set in the same zombie apocalypse, with the Indian film being the prelude to the Burapi film.

Nick: An upside of the film is surely the hints of humor within scenes. They are not necessarily played for laughs, but there are small bits of humor in almost every scene, something I thought Man of Steel lacked. For example, after Brad Pitt shot a man who was robbing his wife in a grocery store, a cop runs in and Pitt puts his hands up, but the officer runs right past him and starts looting. Pitt doesn't laugh, though we are supposed to, and I think it is also supposed to show you how incredibly dire their situation has become.

Dustin: That scene was set in Newark, NJ. The establishing shot shows the city in chaos, and the masses are looting the grocery store. I thought there could have been a throwaway line like, “Just a normal day in New Jersey. Imagine how bad things will get once they realize there’s a zombie apocalypse going on.”

There was another funny part where art imitated life. They escape from a zombie-infested apartment building with the little brown kid from one of the apartments in tow. (The family was speaking Spanish, but I don't want to assume they were Mexican. That would be racist.) I thought, Brad Pitt can’t go anywhere without picking up another random child.

Nick: Since we started this review site we have complained a lot about the shaky cam. But here it works. The technique is used throughout the film, but when in a zombie uprising, your focus would not be still as you’re constantly running from a corpse or looking out for another.

Dustin: I agree it works when there’s an artistic reason for it. I don’t like it when they are just making a half-assed attempt to look more like a documentary. Here, what you don’t see is what’s scary, so it works.

I was a little apprehensive when I saw this was directed by Marc Forster. He’s a very interesting director visually, but I think his talent really lies in drama, and I didn't think he had much aptitude for action after seeing Quantum of Solace, where you couldn't tell which car Bond was driving, or which of the figures falling through the crummy CGIs was 007. I don’t have much complaints on this film in that regard.

Nick: WWZ had many great scenes that were escalated by whatever would make that situation more difficult for the character. Wherever Brad Pitt was the zombies went. The UN should have thrown Brad Pitt into an abyss and let the zombies follow! End of crisis.

Dustin: Would you recommend WWZ?

Nick: I would. The movie provides thrills and chills, and many great actors deliver wonderful performances in small roles. Marc Forster does a good job with the action directing, always letting the audience see enough to understand what is happening within the scene. How about you, sir?

Dustin: I think the movie has broad appeal, and I would recommend it to general audiences, not just fans of the zombie genre. I think even snobbish connoisseurs of zombie films will also like what this movie did with the genre.

Nick: As well as connoisseurs of Brad Pitt’s gorgeous, indestructible face.

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