World War Z (2013)

Andrew Fassbach: "Mother Nature is a serial killer. No one's better, more creative but like all serial killers she can't help the urge to want to get caught."

By Marc Forster
With Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos and Daniella Kertesz

As a huge zombie fan I am always eager to see a new zombie movie, even though I am wary of big budget ones as the best zombie movies tend to be really low budget. Still, I wanted to give it a shot

Gerry Lane retired from his job as a crisis manager for the UN so that he could quietly live with his family. But on a random day, stuck in traffic his family witness what looks like a rabies/zombie attack and they have to fight for their life. Fortunately, the UN appears to need men of his caliber and they come to rescue them with an helicopter into a safe, middle of the ocean naval base. However, the only reason they are allowed to stay is because they want Gerry to work for them and escort a doctor to South Korea where they believe the epidemic started. Gerry first refuses but as they threaten to kick his family out, he has to accept and with it all the danger.

Even though I was excited to see it, I kept my hopes fairly low in order to not be too disappointed. Well, WWZ turned out to be interesting, certainly not original but I didn't get bored. It really felt like they were mixing a few genres or even a few other movies together in order to create a good package. We had the evacuation and saving of the humanity of 2012 (2009), the building escapes and running zombies of 28 Days Later... (2002), the world wide epidemic of Contagion (2011) and of course the scientific labs full of dead of Resident Evil (2002).

Well, that quite sums up the good things in the movie, these themes are all interesting but it felt a little recycled and put together. Ok, I'll admit it, I hate running zombies, zombies should walk with a limp and it annoys me to no end to see them running faster than humans, even more when they actually jump from roofs and create dead human zombie towers to reach heights. I guess this adds for a more fast paced type of action which was clearly the goal here. This and the very happy Hollywoodian ending were my too major reasons to dislike the movie.

I find those running pursuits with shaky camera to be really detrimental to the story lines of any movie but I guess this is how action movies work nowadays. A part from these, personal, quirks the movie is quite enjoyable. The zombies are not really terrifying but some of them look pretty cool. The world tour we embark on is also interesting and the scenes in Korea (which might not be Korea at all) and those in Jerusalem are great and add to the diversity but also the widespread aspect of the pandemic.

The character development is not that important as long as the story continues and it works that way here, we are not attached to anyone's life in particular we just want to see humans and zombies die... or find a vaccine or a cure. The unrated version has some great bashing into skulls for those who actually thought it was a horror movie, it's not really but you at least get some. Overall, it is a great mixture of genres for the largest audience possible.

I liked: zombies! eating people! World tour feel. The amount of zombies. Zombies on a plane. Zombies in Jerusalem.

I disliked: The feel of 2012 with zombies. Shaky camera and very action movie drive. Happy ending.

60/100
It's not for the zombie fans, but it'll content them, as well as the action fans and the adventure fans. Yes, it might sound a little commercial.