Zombie Holocaust!

Rating: 7/10 (25 June 2013)

World War Z gained a lot of notoriety from all the rumors of production problems, reedits and expensive re-shoots. From all those negative stories, you would be forgiven for expecting an incoherent vomit of a movie; that it's not only easy to follow, but also well made and gripping is a massive plus. WWZ tells the story of a mysterious global pandemic, the source of which is unknown, but which turns the majority of the earth's population into rampaging zombies. We see the outbreak from the perspective of Gerry (Brad Pitt) and his family, as they witness it first hand while stuck in rush hour. From there, Gerry – a former government agent - is coerced back into action to find a cure and it is action all the way until the end.
You have to admire this movie on many levels. It's supposedly a summer 'tent pole' release – traditionally a time for family movies - yet, it features lots of zombies running around biting people while getting shot in the process. There are panoramic shots of zombies running amok and the ensuing widespread destruction. And even if the bloodletting and gore levels are appropriately sanitized and restrained for the summer audience, still you have to revel in the joy of an actual summer zombie movie. When has that happened before? When is it likely to happen again?
Brad Pitt (looking about 35 here) makes for a solid action hero as he goes through one hellish experience after another. Strangely, he doesn't really have a regular counterpart/sidekick to bounce ideas/dialog off, resulting in a lot of him asking questions on behalf of the viewer. The one time it seems as if he's going to get a sidekick, said sidekick is dispatched rather quickly in an unintentionally amusing fashion – presumably to give Brad/Gerry more to do. Furthermore, there isn't really the usual secondary subplot to cut to and as such as we see the chaos unfold mostly from his viewpoint. This has the unforeseen consequence of giving the movie a very 'chaptered' form; one-off events – almost like little mini-stories in their own right - take place in one country after another with their own beginning middle and ending and usually as Pitt the lone protagonist as the witness.
The zombie action is excellent and we see suitably large-scale set- pieces of wanton zombie destruction. There is a level of scope and ambition here that you just won't see in something like 'The Walking Dead'. Though it has to be pointed out that those wide vista shots of the zombie hoards building 'ant hills' to scale walls happens only a handful of times in the movie. Even at that, you've probably already seen them in the prevalent trailers, which admittedly takes away some of the 'Wow Factor'.
Now onto the aforementioned 'productions problems' and 're-shoots' that littered this movie's gestation. It's hard to evaluate it without taking those 'issues' into account. Why? Because the telltale signs are so evident. The story takes strange turns, focusing on some elements while completely ignoring others. For example, early on in the story, we see Gerry and his family rescuing a young boy – who we assume Gerry will semi-adopt and become a surrogate father figure to since his offspring are girls; this is how it seems it's being set up - yet the child is never seen or referred to again.
Similarly, Gerry later takes a wounded Israeli soldier under his wing but she is so underwritten and cipher-like, you wonder: what's the point? If that's not enough, then take a high profile actor like Matthew Fox (of Lost); he features early on in the story and you assume he will figure prominently later; instead, he just shows up a handful of times in what could be the role of a background extra and one not worthy of Fox's talents. Just like John Cusack's shorn role in Terence Malicks's 'The Thin Red Line' (1998), what you begin to suspect is that Fox too was a victim of all the re-shoots/re-edits and his arc probably featured more prominently in the earlier version. And if you really want to nitpick, a scene at a facility, while admittedly a stand out that's very well executed, still feels very glued on almost as if it came from a different movie. Yet another legacy of the re-shoots? Probably it certainly feels that way.
As for the pandemic, a reference is made to rabies early on in the story, then it's never really mentioned again. It's vagueness like this that rears its head again and again. Still, it's not the disaster that had been foreshadowed by some members of the media. Yes, it may feel chaptered but it's an intelligent film – for a zombie movie, anyway – that has stuff to say while showing you big spectacle. You really get the impression that this is truly a global pandemic.
And that's the one thing this movie has going for it over a lot of movies of the genera: take any of the Romero zombie movies or any zombie movie from the last few decades, and what you find is the action/outbreak is always restricted to small areas/backwater towns. Not so here – this is the real zombie deal on a massive scale. For the first time ever, you see a zombie apocalypse taking place in cities in populated streets and not just on some back road in the middle of nowhere. But there has to be a trade-off: you can do spectacle or gore but you can't do both. That type of thing costs money, and if you're spending a lot of money, you want your product to be seen by the widest audience possible – meaning what essentially boils down to a bloodless zombie movie. Still there is enough good material in here to keep you interested and make the idea of a sequel/sequels a not altogether unwelcome proposition.