Review

Gerry Lane is a former U.N investigator who now spends his time looking after his adoring wife and two daughters, who want a puppy. His current home bliss is however shattered one morning on the way to work when the zombie apocalypse erupts in his hometown of Philadelphia, spreading rapidly and consuming much of the population. Gerry is soon running with his family in the hope of getting out of the City before they too are victims of the new plague. Thankfully Gerry's former boss can offer help in the form of a helicopter airlift out of the stricken City to a naval armada at sea. Naturally the help comes at a price; Gerry is added to a small mission tasked with finding patient zero in an attempt to produce an antidote.

Gerry and team head off to South Korea where the first hint of zombies was included in an email from a U.S airbase. The base is under lock down and Gerry with a rapidly dimensioning team discover this isn't their final destination, hell Gerry is going to end up with a whole butt load of frequent flyer points on this mission. Can Gerry find a solution in the rapidly escalating chaos, or is the human race doomed to extinction as Mother Nature strikes back? One heck of a movie ensues that was both worse and better than expected.

Let's get this party started by busting a couple of beliefs people will have going into this flick. Firstly don't expect gore of the Romero kind, WWZ comes with a PG13 rating so the nasty is kept off screen, at most is implied, and you are going to be safe taking along the younger set in your family. Whether or not you need gore in your zombie meal is up to you, I sort of swing both ways on the requirement, if the movie is strong enough to stand without it then high fives it's not a deal breaker for me. Similar Director Marc Forster isn't sexing this one up, you could quite happily show this flick at a Fundamentalist after church function without causing unnecessary blushes, hell the movie is almost prudish. Sorry Ladies, Brad is keeping his clothes on!

A big budget zombie flick that delivers the tension but lacks the chills

To the zombies themselves, purists and Romero supporters are going to find new ways to hit meltdown on the subject. We're talking Olympic sprinters here that do move, in a few memorable scenes, in exactly the nature Forster claimed he wanted to achieve. Think ants or a flock of birds suddenly changing direction in unison. It's actually pretty effective and I was finding myself nodding my head in approval. While I'm not a big fan of fast moving zombies, sign me on the shambler groove train, I could see what they were trying to achieve here, and it does work in context of the WWZ universe. I should also mention zombies go into a sort of catatonic state when there's nothing living to attack, they avoid victims with terminal illnesses, and are attracted by sound. So a pretty invasive depiction of the decaying ones for mine, complete with their own "reality" that Forster and his writing team stay true to throughout the movie. I was also pretty impressed with the zombie vocals, sort of clicks and grunts, that in a couple of scenes reminded me of the velociraptors from Steve Speilberg's Jurassic Park for no apparent reason.

Naturally this being a zombie movie of the better variety, see recent reviews of the not so better breed for comparison, there's all sorts of exploration of messages that you can either take or discard depending on how much you really want to think about this flick. The opening title sequence involves nature getting nasty, were they trying to imply the wolves were infected? - and hits ants as Director Marc Forster has a thing for the organised insects. Both aspects of course prelude the main action. We also get the fall of the walled city of Jerusalem due to competing religious overtones from Islamic and Jewish faithful, take from that what you want. And to round out, this being a standard trope of zombie flicks, you just can't trust your government. The themes are tossed onto the table, a light is shone on them, but it's up to the audience to take what they want or leave it all untouched.

Which brings me to a couple of problems with the movie, no film is perfect folks, and WWZ is left in part flapping in the wind. Firstly Director Forster is heavily into the chaotic approach to action scenes, I blame Children of Men for this influence by the way. It was hard working out at stages what was happening as Forster increased his camera shutter speeds and threw any thoughts of choreography out the window. Tone it down Bro, I actually want to see what's going down not get nausea. It might have just been me but I got the feeling of shaky cam from time to time during the action, which always makes me wonder if the person filming has a strong dose of the DTs. The second problem for mine was the tack on scene prior to the end credit sequence. Without giving too much away, the ending might work for the great unwashed but horror fans will be left face palming as Forster goes Walt Disney on us. It's a nihilistic genre dude, stick with the darkness and keep the morning after for rom-coms.

On the bright side Director Forster brings the tensions, there's scenes in the movie that will have you white knuckled on the edge of your set as the screws are tightened. Unfortunately, particular for those hoping for a full bore zombie flick, the actual horror doesn't go down as you would expect. At no time was I uneasy during the movie and there was a distinct lack of screaming from the audience at the screening I attended.

Brad Pitt (Gerry Lane), Mireille Enos (Karin Lane), and Daniella Kertesz (Segen) are all kicking it big time in the leading roles. A touch of class brought to a genre that at times is home only to the acting challenged. Pitt in particular brings a polish to proceedings that raises the movie a notch above what one would expect from a zombie flick. I pretty much enjoyed all the performances and can sign off on the casting choices made.

In the modern age no big budget summer tent pole goes unmolested by the haters and Reviewers who generally don't dip their toes in the dark waters of the genre. Generally the haters, when they can be bothered thinking up a reason for attacking a movie many of them haven't seen, are pointing at WWZ being all about Brad Pitt flicking between locations. Sorry, they didn't read the source novel I guess, I wasn't taken out of the movie by the multinational approach but can see people who want a group of survivors in a single location finding this movie slightly hard going. I'm amused by the Reviewers gushing over WWZ bringing new ideas to the zombie subgenre, sorry nothing new folks, about the only originality evidenced was the insect like flocking of the zombies, though no doubt someone will write in and point out a movie that already has this approach covered. I'm going to give this one a recommendation even with the odd issue it has, while not being the greatest horror movie of the year it does deliver the tension you crave.

The reported budget for World War Z was $190 million, which is gonna take a whole bunch of movie goers to cover. Paramount will be happy with the opening weekend. In North America the movie delivered $66.4 million and opened at number two. Downunder the movie opened at number one in both Australia and New Zealand, earning $6 million and $911k respectively.