Surprisingly Awesome

Rating: 8/10 (24 June 2013)

With Brad Pitt it is a hit or miss performance. Examples are Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a strike out to end the game while Fight Club is a grand slam. Then he did a movie like Troy which is more like an intentional walk. He was boring and almost unnecessary but still useful. With World War Z out I gave it a fighting chance it's easily an RBI double. You know I should have said Moneyball with all with all the baseball references but I haven't seen it but I assume he did well. World War Z is a zombie movie loosely based on the book and with all the zombie stuff that came out in the past few years with The Walking Dead and all the videogames about zombies I feared this movie would be too little too late.
I had high hopes for this movie and I was not disappointed. The movie starts with a bit of a far-fetched action sequence but it kicked off the movie in strong fashion. We saw a little bit of his normal family life and everything seemed really good. We get a hint at an old job Pitt had but he left to be with his family. I personally liked his family. I was afraid once he left them they would not really be seen again but every now and then the audience is reminded of their existence and that is important. His family is why he fights and it is his drive for everything he does in the movie.
With the way the movie kicked off I was a bit worried. In terms of action it was awesome and set a great pace but in terms of story it lacked, badly. The zombie outbreak just happened. No idea how or why. It was sudden and it came out of nowhere. One second the family is in traffic and the next there is an explosion and a huge truck plowing away traffic like snow. I was sitting in my theater giving myself a reality check seeing as that truck would never get thru those cars so easily but I let it go. The movie then took a turn and dug deep into the story. It turns out Pitt used to work for the UN and he is set out on a quest to find the origin of the virus and the leverage to actually do it is his family. I also loved the little Spanish kid they take in while they are in Newark, kid is a beast.
Brad Pitt gives another stellar performance and so did the actress who played the little girl in The Dark Knight Rises, it's the little girl with the shaved head we all thought was a bay, yeah her, she was a good fit. In terms of acting Brad Pitt was the only one that mattered. By that I mean nobody else got enough screen time to get connected to. Anthony Hopkins plays a criminal in a South Korean prison and his character was awesome. The conversation between him and Pitt was my favorite scene is the entire movie. I wish it was possible to see more of his character and many others but to push the story along they had their fifteen minutes of fame, literally, and moved on.
In terms of suspense this movie was grade A. The scene where the zombies are climbing up the wall by using a giant pig pile was brilliant. That whole scene was a giant mound of awesomeness I didn't want to end. The zombies themselves looked amazing and real. When I say real I mean if zombies were a real thing they would look like these zombies. The way they run in packs and swarm cities is terrifying and awesome to watch. The transformation from normal person to a hungry zombie was creepy and hard to watch. The action scenes were great, especially the scene on the plane. I saw it in the trailers and I was afraid it would be awful but it was awesome.
Other than explosive and physical action there was a sense of suspense in sneaking around. Pitt finds himself in a hospital because he thinks has found a way to become immune to the virus. He and two other people are sneaking around and its gets intense. The crawling and sneaking is like something from a video game and it was fun to watch. It wasn't a short thing either, it took a long time for the scene to finish and it was highly entertaining.
Overall, I thought World War Z was going to be a disgrace of a film but I walked out enjoying it very much. I heard this was the beginning of a trilogy which I am now OK with. With the way it ended I left with a feeling of wanting more. Brad Pitt did way better than I thought he would have and when it comes out on blu ray I will buy it. For now, World War Z gets the WillyT Honorable mention. It is a very good movie for the summer and is one that you should go see and enjoy as much as I did.