World War Z (2013)

"Based" on the well received 2006 novel of the same name by Max Brooks (son of Mel), World War Z shares very little with its source material other then a couple of vinyets, a central protagonist who works for the UN, and a general interest in the soci-political implications of a world wide zombie plague. The original novel was subtitled "An Oral History of the Zombie War" and was presented as a compellation of accounts of various participants in this global struggle recorded for the UN years after it ended. Now this structure would be extremely unconventional for a summer block buster, if one were to seriously attempt it a better format would likely be as a miniseries, or even a television series. So instead this movie just takes some of the broader themes from the novel and splices them throughout what's basically just a standard zombie movie, only on a much wider scale. This results in what is not a bad movie, but one that certainly disappoints in relation to the book.

Brad Pitt plays a recently retired UN investigator name Gerry Lane, who is recruited by his old boss at the UN (Fana Mokoena) in the immediate aftermath of the zombie outbreak to search for both the origin and a solution to the zombie plague. Now if you've read the book you know that it has no "silver bullet" solution to the problem of zombies in it, other then a bullet to the brain, but again this movie is a very lose adaptation of the book. Lane travels around the world from the north east US, to South Korea, to Jerusalem, to Wales of all places. looking for the answers. People he talks to give him little monologues somewhat reminiscent of material from the book, and CG zombies are seen in unconvincing abundance. The siege of Jerusalem sequence, seemingly the films show piece, felt like it missed something, the ending was suspenseful enough but ultimately disappointing in its quick resolution, so ultimately it was the early parts of the film set in the US that felt most promising.

One can admire the desire here, the interest in the source material, but one feels the creative powers that be with this movie never knew quite what they wanted to do with it. In fact I've heard that the last forty minutes of the film was completely redone with a new ending after the original cut of the film was assembled, and it kind of shows. Taken on its own merits however the film is entertaining and intermittently just shy of insightful. There is room at the end explicitly made for a sequel, but I suspect little actual desire for one now that all is said and done. World War Z the book is the masterpiece of zombie literature (behind maybe the Walking Dead comics) but as a film it falls short of early Romero. **1/2