Action & Adventure Pick: World War Z (2013)
World War Z was one of the biggest surprises of 2012. The film suffered from a long, publicized string of production delays, rewrites, and reshoots, and limped its way to theaters with an inflated $190 million price tag. Zombie movies may be popular, but they’re hardly profitable, so all signs pointed toward the film being a major flop.
Yet, $540 million later, World War Z became Brad Pitt’s highest-grossing film to date and was immediately greenlit for a sequel. Sure, it didn’t please everyone (especially fans of Max Brooks’ novel, which the film resembles in title alone), but I had a ton of fun with it and was very impressed with the final product.
Pitt stars as former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane, who’s called back into action when a zombie outbreak throws the world into chaos and threatens to wipe out the human race. The plot’s pretty similar to zombie flicks we’ve seen before, though the undead in this film make those from movies like 28 Days Later and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead look like friendly little nuisances. These are fast, brutal, and virtually unbeatable creatures that devour everything in their path, which leads to some pretty great action sequences.
As cool as the zombies are in this movie, it’s the more subdued moments that make the film memorable. Pitt is on a mission to locate the origin of the virus that started the outbreak, and hopefully discover a cure. That brings him around the world, and though the film applies a predictable “Brad Pitt lands somewhere, zombies attack, he runs away” structure, each set piece is unique and smartly put together. For instance, the zombies are attracted by noise, so in one instance Pitt and a few soldiers decide to ride bikes to their destination. The scene is incredibly tense, well directed, and not something you see very often in movies like this.
World War Z is a film that could have easily ended in disaster, yet managed to impress nonetheless. The third act was completely thrown out during production, rewritten by Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard, and reshot, and feels a bit like a different movie altogether. However, it’s undoubtedly my favorite part of the film, and is executed so well that I’ll forgive it for shifting the movie’s gears so suddenly.
Though the theatrical release was rated PG-13 (which pretty much just means they hide a lot of the blood), the Unrated cut is also available for streaming. So, choose your version at your own risk.