Film Review: WORLD WAR Z (2013)

 WORLD WAR Z (2013) US/UK/Malta 1hr 56mins

Director: Marc Forster

"Mother nature is a serial killer. No one's better. Or more creative" - Dr. Andrew Fassbach.

"You all read the same email I did, it said zombies" - Official on the aircraft carrier.

"If you can fight... fight. Help each other, be prepared for anything" - Gerry Lane.

Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is a former employee for the UN who gets recruited again when a zombie plague becomes a global pandemic. After his hometown becomes overrun with infected, he and his family barely escape with their lives but are rescued by his old employer. Thierry (Fana Mokoena) reluctantly blackmails Gerry into escorting their best hope for a cure, the young doctor Andrew Fassbach (Elyes Gabel), to South Korea in an attempt to track down patient zero. Once landed at an army base in South Korea it becomes apparent that all is not well as they and the remaining soldiers are attacked. After a major fatality Gerry finds himself turning his trip into a fact finding mission. Gleaning as much information as possible from the soldiers he is told to head to Israel. Getting back on his plane he lands in Jerusalem to discuss their security and how quickly they reacted to early warnings of the virus and fortified the city accordingly. Whilst being shown around by an armed guard Gerry witnesses first hand the huge walls surrounding the city and the sense of security around them so much so the citizens start to sing and one woman picks up a microphone. As the sound amplifies around the walls the infected outside get more and more agitated, they start to swarm climbing up each other to the top of the wall and spill onto the living below. Amidst the chaos Gerry see's a frail old man and a sickly looking child get bypassed by the zombies as he and soldier Segan (Daniella Kertesz) fight their way back to the air strip. During a fight Segan gets her arm bitten by a zombie and Gerry quickly amputates it. They make it to the air strip in time to see their plane taking off without them. Commandeering a passenger plane the UN instruct the pilots to take Gerry to the nearest CDC centre which happens to be Cardiff in Wales, UK. Crash landing in Wales a wounded Gerry and Segan make it to the W.H.O Research Centre. After finding some people alive inside Gerry comes up with a with an idea. After witnessing the zombies completely ignore the obviously sick and elderly he comes to the conclusion that the zombies only target healthy hosts. Anyone who already has a potentially terminal illness becomes invisible to them. The doctors agree that this could be a way of protecting people but are unsure how to test this theory. Firstly how do they even get to the terminal diseases they need as they are located in a vault deep in zombie infested B wing? Gerry goes on one last mission to retrieve the vials and test his theory, taking the first step in fighting the zombie plague.

WORLD WAR Z is based on Max Brooks' novel WORLD WAR Z: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE ZOMBIE WAR (2006) but really only bares a fleeting resemblance to it which I think was this movies biggest mistake. Perhaps if they had made no reference to the book and gave it a different name it may have gone down better with some zombie fans. Brooks' book is a fantastic adventure set 20 years after the start of a zombie apocalypse as a UN agent for the postwar commission travels the world collecting stories and interviews of a global pandemic. This collection is brought together into five lengthy chapters to create a comprehensive narrative of which does not lend itself very well to movie adaptation. I like the fact that WORLD WAR Z the movie incorporates ideas from the novel and makes it work from a different perspective, pretty much throwing out every aspect other than the fact that it's zombies, it's global and it involves travelling to find the source of infection. They choose to go from the beginning of the zombie virus in the movie and the source of infection is explored but quickly avoided. WORLD WAR Z has masses of action yet follows a pretty steady plot, whilst not wholly original, being a big budget piece it has it's set format, namely to have a sympathetic hero lead that battles through hordes of zombies whilst quietly coming up with a wildly hare brained plan that will save the day. It's fast pace holds up, whilst being rather far fetched it manages to keep your attention throughout without causing confusion and flowing really well. It's very well acted by a talented cast led expertly by Brad Pitt in one of his more down played wholesome roles with a supporting cast consisting of Mireille Enos, Matthew Fox, Fana Mokoena, David Morse and brief appearance from Peter Capaldi. The child actors cast as Pitt's children aren't even that annoying either. The zombies here, which they do call zombies, are a huge plus point here. They are the fast infected type that run and swarm in vast numbers throwing themselves around and biting without hesitation. Time of infection once bitten is anything from 12 seconds to 10 minutes. It seems in this instance it is not as transmissible as in the previously reviewed 28 DAYS LATER (2002) and 28 WEEKS LATER (2007) with people only getting infected by actual bites. Stories came from Korea of whole villages pulling out all of their teeth so they couldn't bite each other. This isn't a typical feel good action movie either with a dark undertone of terminal illness, entire city populations being wiped out, families getting separated and a couple of shock deaths. It certainly has elements of threat and horror to it but it is not really gory at all. Obviously the hordes of zombies are computer generated with minimal practical FX but okay make-up. You don't see a lot of the zombies close up to start with so it's mostly just cloudy eyes and convulsive movement but you do get some great close ups of them later on at the CDC. The female captive zombie with the huge bulging eyes and (one of my favourites) the doctor that follows Gerry to the vault with his sinister chattering teeth! Absolutely brilliant! The soundtrack is massively impressive as it would be for it's status with a couple of the tracks written by Matt Bellamy and performed by Muse.

I actually really do rate this movie. Okay so it's more action then anything else, it's nothing like the book (which doesn't matter a shit to me) and it brings on more moans of "zombies don't run!" blah blah which again, does not matter to me. It is engaging, entertaining, well executed and less pretentious than some other big budget zombie movies. When WORLD WAR Z first came out in the cinema I found it a lot of fun and it is one I have revisited many times and still really enjoy it! I score WORLD WAR Z 4 brains out of 5!