Gerry’s mission is simple and basic - he wants to keep his family safe - and when he says goodbye to his daughters you believe it. Pitt carries the entire movie, as both its star and emotional core. He clocks the 12 seconds it takes for people to turn upon witnessing his first transformation, putting the pieces of the puzzle together quicker than what we’re used to seeing. Early on, Gerry gets zombie blood in his mouth and runs to the edge of a building, realizing he may have to throw himself off should he transform. World War Z is a disaster film in the classic 1970s sense - think The Towering Inferno or The Poseidon Adventure - serving as light allegory for our indifference towards nature while also bringing a lot of smarts to the table.
The movie shouldn’t be confused for a Romero-style zombie flick, however. They make the zombies from The Walking Dead look positively cuddly in comparison: lightning-fast biters straight from the subconscious that simply do not stop. Imagine the undead from 28 Days Later, make them twice as fast, and combine them with the swarming fury of fire ants and you’ll get an idea of World War Z’s creatures. When attacking en masse the zombies are an overwhelming tidal wave one-on-one they’re a vicious mix of tics and snarls. World War Z is a string of unrelenting, harrowing sequences that continually manage to top one another - spanning multiple countries, the ground, and air. But by then the movie is already off to its next action set piece.Īnd what set pieces they are. In fact, it’s almost too fast at a certain point, it feels like somebody left out the requisite moment when everybody looks around and wonders just what these crazy zombie creatures actually are. It’s such a quick progression of events it makes your head spin. To ensure his family stays safely aboard the ship, Gerry agrees to lead the investigation into the origins of the plague.
"Mother Nature is a serial killer," a UN doctor tells Gerry, but she does leave clues behind. Whatever struck the world struck fast, Gerry learns - the president of the United States is already dead - and with the entire globe infected the only hope is to find Patient Zero. Explosions strike, fast-moving zombies swarm, and everybody starts running for their lives.Ī former investigator for the United Nations, Gerry is able to get his family to safety on an aircraft carrier with the help of his colleague Thierry (Fana Mokoena). Then the family find themselves stuck in city traffic and all hell breaks loose. There’s a brief scene where Brad Pitt’s Gerry Lane makes breakfast for his wife Karin (Mireille Enos from The Killing) and their two daughters. The finished film starts off by mercilessly throwing the audience into the deep end of the zombie apocalypse. Writers like Damon Lindelof and Cloverfield’s Drew Goddard were brought in to completely rework the film’s third act in an effort to salvage the big-budget tentpole from disaster.
Much of the blame was laid at the feet of director Marc Forster ( Quantum of Solace, Monster's Ball) and a script that hadn’t been ready to shoot. Last year Paramount delayed the film’s original 2012 release date to allow for extensive reshoots. The adaptation of Max Brooks’ best-seller has been best known up until this point for its production problems. You find yourself in the middle of a relentless rush of anxiety, fear, and exhilaration, and when you walk out of the theater you can’t wait to tell someone what you just witnessed. Familiar tropes are reinvented, a tired villain gets new life, and presumed lines of safety are crossed. Something you thought was going to be a mid-summer slog or an underwhelming riff on familiar themes turns out to be something more.