[Movie Review] World War Z (2013)

Posted on June 26, 2013 by thegrandshuckett in Movie Reviews // 1 Comment

Plot Summary: United Nations employee Gerry Lane traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to destroy humanity itself.

Director: Marc Forster

Writers: Matthew Michael Carnahan (screenplay & screen story), Drew Goddard (screenplay), Damon Lindelof (screenplay), J. Michael Straczynski (screen story), Max Brooks (based on the novel by)

Runtime: 116 min

Main Cast:

Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane
Mireille Enos as Karin Lane
Daniella Kertesz as Segen
James Badge Dale as Captain Speke
Ludi Boeken as Jurgen Warmbrunn
Fana Mokoena as Thierry Umutoni

Review: by Anthony & Lee

Seeing the trailer for World War Z for the first time, we thought "Brad Pitt is in a zombie movie?" Brad Pitt is kind of a big deal, and his career is certainly not in a downward spiral; therefore, we thought this movie had to be something awfully special to get him to sign on.

What We Liked:

It wasn’t gory. A lot of the typical zombie movie viewers expect and enjoy the gruesomeness of a zombie eating some poor victim’s face or the splatter of blood and gore as a protagonist blasts a zombie’s head in half, but this is a welcome change for us. I, Lee, do not like gore at all, and I was overjoyed that I was able to get all the nail-biting thrill of a zombie movie with out all the blood of a horror movie. A lot of the violence actually happened off screen but was done in a way that we felt didn’t detract from the movie. It made it quite unique.

The acting was really good. We assumed that Brad Pitt would outshine everyone, but, while we did not take him for granted, Daniella Kertesz was great as Segen. Her character was fantastic and easily our favorite.

Even though the movie strayed from relying on the typical gore of zombie movies, it retained some of the cliche moments. Cliches are usually a bad thing, but, let’s be honest, that is what you look for when you go to see a zombie movie.

What We Didn’t Like:

Although it was counted as a positive for us that the violence wasn’t over the top, it was kind of non-existent. The PG-13 rating was obvious and really restricted the zombie-ness.

Much of the plot was left unexplained. There was a sudden zombie outbreak, but by the end of the movie neither the cause nor the solution was found. Brad Pitt never found patient zero, which was his entire mission, and the viewers were left with no clear idea of how the humans are going to reclaim the world.

The first half of the movie was kind of detached from the second half. It was really a bunch of random scenes that didn’t actually contribute to the plot of the movie.

There was a lot of controversy surrounding the movie. It was supposedly based on the novel of the same title, but apparently the title was all they shared. Also, there were multiple reports of Brad Pitt not getting along with and not speaking to the director and of lots of re-shooting and re-writing scenes.

Overall:

It wasn’t a bad movie. It would have been more enjoyable for us without the people behind us talking through the entire showing, but we still liked it. It was exciting and different. It could have been better, but most movies could be.

Rating: 3/5 Stars