World War Z

I had a ton of anticipation before World War Z and sadly the movie never lived up to what I had imagined. Sadly, the entire movie feels like it's allergic to any type of risk or surprise, failing to inspire anything out of the viewer except for sighs.

What's up? Brad Pitt stars as Gerry Lane as a man determined to do anything to save his family. And when the world is overtaken by a massive amount of zombies, he will get a chance to prove his strength, needing to involve himself in first-hand combat against the enemies in order to provide consistent protection for his wife and kids.

What's good? World War Z is eye candy all the way, you can tell it took about 100,000,000,0000000 billion dollars to make and it shows. Several scenes are breathtaking. My personal favorites were the opening attack, the scene with all of the zombies piling up on each other like a chain (ruined in every preview) and the plane attack, where things reach their highest boiling point. I also thought the zombies themselves were rather impressive looking (for once they aren't blood stained or missing chunks) and I give kudos for this movie, unlike most zombies flicks, being able to keep them offscreen for some time, making it even more exciting when you were able to see one up close.

This is pretty much the Brad Pitt show, and luckily, he's a strong enough actor to pull it off. Not a lot of actors can shine on their own (for a majority of the movie it really feels like he's the only one around), but Pitt manages to keep the viewers' interest with his believability and strength in the lead role.

What the fuck? The irony of World War Z is that the PG-13 rating reduced the movie to being bloodless and that would be my biggest complaint about World War Z's tone; it's bloodless and gutless. Being PG-13 doesn't mean you need to take the shock out (see The Ring, The Others, 1408, The Skeleton Key for chilling PG-13 movies), but World War Z takes the gore limit needed and plays it safe. There's no surprise, genuine thrills, or even fun here. It's like a Disney channel zombie movie.

World War Z has the tendency to drag like a corpse. The opening scenes of hysteria are great but there's a giant chunk in the middle that just kind of paces in circles without ever going anywhere or arriving at a point. Evenually things pick up, the last 30 minutes is pretty fun to watch, but you have to make it through so much mud just to get somewhere. It's like the director would tease the viewer with an occasional awesome scene just to put them back to sleep 5 seconds later.

Overall World War Z had all the chances to succeed with a budget as limitless as the sky and a great cast, but sadly it takes the easy and safe way out, often resorting to bland zombie movie characteristics that have been done in much scarier and more memorable movies. There's a war going on between the living and the dead but a bigger battle that will occur is the struggle you will endure with staying awake.

2/4