World War Z

Prior to seeing World War Z, I thought I was going to have a pretty big problem with the movie. I read the book and I really liked it. Then, based on everything I had read about the movie, I thought I was going to have a problem with the fact that the movie seemed to be nothing like the book. Now I can say with certainty that the movie is nothing like the book. In fact, the only thing they have in common is they both contain zombies. If you had no intention of properly adapting the book, then way even base your film on it? You can easily have named this movie something else and left the book for someone who actually wanted to adapt the book. And I still sort of feel that way, I love books just as much as I love movies and I want film to remain as faithful as possible, although I do know it's better to make some changes to source material. Some things just don't translate from the page to the screen. All of that being said, I sort of loved World War Z. Regardless of how much it strayed from the book, the movie was still pretty intense and bad ass.

World War Z stars Brad Pitt as Gerry. He used to work for the UN but has since left that job to stay at home with his wife (The Killing's Mireille Enos) and two daughters. We get approximately 8 minutes of family fun time / morning rituals before the intensity starts. And once it starts it doesn't let up until near the end (which is the problem with the film but more on that later). Gerry and Karen and their kids live in Philadelphia and they are stuck in traffic when the zombie epidemic begins. No one is quite sure what is going on but mass hysteria is beginning and with Gerry's UN background, he recognizes real trouble when he sees it. He also has friends in high places so while his family manages to make it to New Jersey where they temporarily bunk with a nice Hispanic family who give them food and beer, Gerry's friends in the UN higher ups send a helicopter to get his family. They then take him to the brand new U.S. command center on a Navy boat. This help doesn't come without strings, however. In order for his family to remain safe and sound on board, Gerry has to help a young doctor make his way through the raging zombie wars in order to find some sort of cure or vaccine. Gerry's travels take him to South Korea, Israel and Wales where he meets different people and hears their stories.

This is the closest the movie comes to being near the book. The book is basically a series of stories from different people from across the world. We never hear from the same person more than once. There is no main character. And the story that is freshest in my mind (about a bad ass samauri sword wielding blind man) didn't even make the movie. Anyway, during Gerry's travels, he starts to notice things which makes him believe he can find not a cure per se, but more of a camoflauge. This leads him to a research center in Wales where the anti-climactic conclusion of the film takes place.

The first two/thirds of the film are intense and frightening, although the movie ultimately suffers a bit from its PG-13 rating (I know why they made it PG-13, I just wish they had decided to go R, so they could go a little ballsier with some of the scenes). Regardless of the rating, there are still some super awesome sequences, including that already iconic image of the zombies using each other as a sort of ladder in order to get over an Israeli wall. There is also a pretty amazing plane sequence (it rivals that of the sequence in Flight). World War Z manages to be a nearly perfect summer movie: it has a great leading man performance, solid script and directing, and amazing, intense, white-knuckle action sequences. Where the movie flounders is with the ending. Apparently there was an original ending that they ditched which the Internet says is better. I haven't read about it yet, but I'm curious about ideas for an alternate ending. The ending they went with is completely lackluster. The action all but stops and we are left with a seriously misplaced ending. I guess it is sort of refreshing in a world where most superhero movies have three or four endings just so they can destroy more buildings (I'm looking at you, Man of Steel), that World War Z got all their craziness out of the way early, but the ending still feels disappointing.

Overall, World War Z is so much better than I was expecting, if not completely different. Even though it doesn't stick to its source material at all, it still offers a fun, fierce, frightening summer movie experience. This is one of the best of the early summer.

Grade: B