World War Z: Zombies Ate My People
(– ***Spoilers For The Above*** –)
The myriad gossip behind the very troubled and very public making of World War Z fascinated
me. I find it difficult to recall a production whose tribulations were
so intriguing to the trades and even to general audiences. What was it
about this film and its production that caused such fascination amongst
not only film journalists and budget hounds, but film goers as well?
Perhaps Brad Pitt's involvement is the source of all the extra attention
this film received, he's been a tabloid fixture for decades now.
Possibly the loose adaptation of a well known novel, of which many
writers took many liberties with in their translation of the book to the
screen can be blamed for all the added scrutiny. Quite possibly the
balloon like nature of the budget itself brought the ravenous hunger of
rubbernecking gawkers hoping for a crash. In the end, all the attention
helped to bolster the films relative popularity and weekend gross, all
but assuring Pitt's, or some other star's, continuing bout with a world
over run with zombies. However if the film had been less entertaining,
all the naysayers would have been vindicated in their hope of failure.
This is an entertaining film. A solid genre exercise in the vein of 2012 or Contagion, Z is almost a mash-up of the two, with a little bit of Shaun of the Dead thrown
in for good measure. Pitt continues his Robert Redford screen persona,
but here performs almost a caricature of that persona, while
simultaneously expanding upon it by adding his own personal experience
to the mix. He is the uber father, adopting the world, however
reluctantly, and bearing the cross for what is surely the sins of
others, the creators of these zombies/ the men who have abandoned their
children, or the man/God abandoning humanity, leaving only Pitt/Gerry to
collect and rescue the abandoned. This is as subtle as subtext can get,
but I felt a sense of guilt in Gerry, possibly for living such a
privileged life, while working in mostly unprivileged parts of the world
for the U.N. When he speaks of the work he did in various parts of the
world, he seems almost ashamed at what they were unable to accomplish
there. Is it this guilt, or some other unacknowledged past sin which
causes him to bear the burden of saving humanity from this epidemic. His
family's safety obviously is his main catalyst, but there is something
behind his actions that suggests more in his psyche than just the
protection of his clan.The extension of his familial clan to include the
human clan in general.
Immediately we see Pitt's influence with the first part of the film
focusing on the family, and Gerry's struggle to protect them and keep
them from harms way. We get a believable performance from Mireille Enos,
who stars as Detective Linden on The Killing, a television show I have
followed since the pilot and have much to say yet will refrain from
saying it at the moment, although I never quite believe in their love
for one another enough to truly become invested in their story. Both
give dutiful performances and create some semblance of a dutiful
marriage devoted to the children. As they run from the outbreak we get
the standard apocalyptic movie and video game tropes, they steal a car
and stop for groceries, and have to fend off not only zombies but humans
turned monsters by fear. Most of Gerry's encounters with the zombies
are marked by his detective work in figuring out the tendencies of the
zombies. He watches the way they move, he figures out how long it takes
to turn once bitten, he studies who they eat and whom they spare, and
uses this information to varying degrees of success in the fight against
them. This along with the CGI extravagance separates the film from most
zombie movies.
In the store we see an interesting encounter between Gerry and a gun
toting young man in a pharmacy. Gerry needs albuterol for his daughter
and the young man seems to have taken the drug center as his refuge. He
is a thief with a heart however, and gives Gerry more than what he
needs. A moment of humanity amongst the madness that ensues in this
store. Another trope of zombie or apocalyptic films. I was actually
reminded of the film Blindness
which too has a frightening grocery store visit. After this they flee
to an apartment building and find sanctuary with a Hispanic family.
Gerry has his U.N. connections arrange for a helicopter to extract him
from the roof of the apartment building but the patriarch of the
Hispanic family refuse to accompany Gerry. Gerry tells him that people
who stay in one spot usually don't survive in situations such as these.
After Gerry's family leaves the apartment to head for the roof, the
Hispanic family is immediately attacked. They are all killed presumably
except for the eldest son whom speaks English and makes his way to the
roof and is carried off in Gerry's helicopter. This is the first of
Gerry's adoptions, as this boy stays with his family through the end of
the movie.
They are transported to a ship in the Atlantic ocean, where important
people and their families are being held. In order for Gerry to keep his
family there he must go out and track the virus back to its originator.
There is much irrelevant and time filling exposition and ridiculous
introductions to characters whom are quickly and in some cases quite
hilariously killed off. The rest of the film devolves into a video game
of sorts, where Gerry lands in one part of the world and is immediately
given the clues to send him to another part of the world to find more
clues. However what is interesting about the Jerusalem scene is that the
city is protected from the outbreak by a man who received an email
containing the word zombie in it. More accurately he sits on a council
who received this email and it was his job to disagree with this council
in their assessment of the email and prepare the city for a zombie
apocalypse. They are all safe and sound until the people begin singing a
religious song, and the zombies act as an ant hill in single minded
fury creating a hill of zombies which allows them to scale the walls of
Jerusalem and devour the people.
This is where Gerry adopts another child, who is more a young woman
than child, she is a soldier whom is infected while protecting Gerry,
and he is forced to slice off her hand. They go on to survive an
airplane ride which is oddly, funny and tense, a Zombies on a Plane
situation,and a plane crash reminiscent of The Grey.
The third act redeems the silliness of the second with an intimate and
personal climax and denouement that I, having not cared much about the
production of this film,was completely unaware of and unprepared for.
The majority of this film is filled with big summer blockbuster, over
the top, zombie action,and it all winds down to a quiet and tense
standoff in a World Health Organization laboratory. We endure more video
game antics here, Metal Gear Solid, or Resident Evil sneaking around
zombies and hoping they don't hear you, however it is all capped off
with quite a moving and emotional ending. This is what was chosen to end
the film with,and cost the studio a hefty price to include, rather than
the typical blow everything up cause it's summer blockbuster ending
that we usually get, and have repeatedly received this summer. This is
Gerry's final adoption, in which he adopts all the sins of the world,
and sacrifices himself, by injecting a deadly disease, into his body. I
thought it was a clever and jarring displacement of energy and a
welcomed subversion of expectations, that left me happy to see the hokey
ending where Gerry is reunited with his family including the new
adopted children.
Is it silly? Absolutely. Is there bad dialogue? Yes. Are there plot
holes and leaps of logic, and sometimes jarring shifts in tone? This is
Hollywood we're talking about here. But I was generally entertained and
pleasantly surprised by most of the choices made here by committee.
Considering the production and what we could have seen up on that
screen, it's a miracle this thing turned out as good as it did.
3 out of 5 Stars
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