Some movies set out to be so ambitious they run the risk of collapsing in on their own expectations. Unfortunately, “World War Z” seems to perfectly fit into this category. Expectations for this film have been high, and the trailers looked fantastic, but it doesn’t look like this summer zombie movie will unseat the “Man of Steel” or even Disney’s “Monsters University” in terms of box office revenue.
In the film’s attempt to fit into several different categories, it ends up alienating itself from pretty much every genre, leading to a certain apathy about the movie that is perceptible when watching.
The film revolves around Gerry, played by an always concerned-looking Brad Pitt, a U.N. investigator who is called back to duty when the outbreak begins. In return for keeping his family safe, Gerry travels around the world trying to find a possible cure for this pesky little virus that’s destroying the world. But Gerry runs into problems, just like the audience does.
The movie itself seemed like two different films stitched together. The first half was pretty good – it started to explore the global implications of a massive virus that turned part of the population into bloodthirsty monsters – but that storyline petered out fairly quickly.
In the second half of the movie, the macro look at a semi-realistic zombie outbreak is suddenly traded in for a cliche zombie horror flick, complete with jump scares and close-ups of the undead who chatter their teeth at their prey for unknown reasons. Maybe they’re cold, that was never explained.
It seems like every zombie trope makes an appearance in the second half. Sneaking past a room full of the undead, the bumbling sidekick inadvertently making a loud noise and alerting the zombies to the group’s location. The other bumbling sidekick shooting a gun after Gerry explicitly tells her to cool it on the firearms. The list goes on.
The book version of “World War Z,” from which the movie supposedly takes its premise, comes in the form of a series of interviews of survivors conducted by a U.N. representative about 10 years since the initial outbreak. Each chapter is another interview, another story, inevitably from different parts of the world, detailing the experiences of the Zombie War.
It seems like that would make an incredibly interesting film, but apparently the people who made the film adaptation did not agree.
The “World War Z” movie is nothing like the book. Aside from a few nods to the original ideas, Israel’s ability to contain the outbreak fairly well, and a vague reference to the U.N., the film version of “World War Z” is a completely different animal than the source material.
So it can’t be compared to the book. This movie could have potentially been an awesome straight-up zombie flick. But unfortunately, “World War Z” takes itself way too seriously to be a fun summer zombie fest. It’s very reminiscent of virus movies like “Contagion” and “Quarantine,” but stops just short of actually embodying the philosophical and sociological impact of these kinds of movies.
The main problem with the film is that it’s trying to be too many things, to fit into too many genres, rather than trying to be bold and creating its own. Midway through the filming of “World War Z,” production was stopped and the film was completely retooled. Perhaps the people in charge backed out of the original concept when they weren’t sure it would be universally popular. The movie wants to be bold, but lost its nerve.
If that’s the case, then Paramount missed a great opportunity to create the new benchmark in zombie movies. That’s what makes this movie so disappointing; you’re expecting it to be so much more than it actually turns out to be. With such an amazing premise, the film isn’t bad, it’s just not as great as it could be.