World War Z (15.)
Directed by Marc Forster.
Starring Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale, Daniella Kertesz and Peter Capaldi.
116 mins.
Brad Pitt casts himself in the Angelina Jolie role here – he’s a globetrotting U.N. ambassador popping up in various crisis zones offering help and support. The crisis here is a zombie epidemic that has brought humanity to its knees and Pitt has been charged with finding its source and maybe its cure. The twist here is that everywhere he goes he brings greater chaos.
After two decades I think most people would agree Pitt has been good value for his superstardom. Occasionally though he is capable of leaving himself looking a right berk and he is barely more dignified here than in the Chanel 5 ads last Christmas. The Max Brooks novel it is based on had a multi-viewpoint perspective, made up of various eye-witness accounts. The film makes it into a total star vehicle. Pitt, with his Jesus hairstyle, is the only man with any answers, insights or initiative. He’s really the only thing in the film; no other performer, living or undead, makes any impact at all. Give the star everything is a scriptwriting fundamental but here it makes him the focus of audience resentment and disappointment at being severely short changed by a summer blockbuster.
As a title World War Z makes a promise: that it will give an epic dimension to the zombie movie. To do so means reconciling two opposing narratives and its failure to do this is at the heart of what is wrong with it. While the blockbuster must build towards ever bigger set pieces and ultimate triumph, the traditional zombie film starts with widespread panic before moving towards a place of confinement and a downbeat ending. The film’s troubled and expensive production history has been widely publicised and centred on an ending that didn’t work. The ending you don’t get is a battle scene in Moscow, which was shot but dumped. It is replaced by a small scale sequence that wouldn’t really satisfy as a conclusion to a mid-season Doctor Who episode and feels like a rip off here.
It is in effect a Transformers movie in denial: big and sweeping but po-faced and unexciting with big gapping spaces where action should be. The opening scenes in Philadelphia, as normality sinks into carnage and chaos, are quite well done but everything that follows is either too dark for you to see anything or marred by mediocre effects and narrative incoherence. Director Forster previously botched Quantum of Solace and though these kind of epic productions are too vast to really go about attributing individual blame for their failure, he just doesn't seem to have much of a feel for these kind of films. Even the zombies are nondescript, as if nobody had put any thought into them.
So you are left with a mass audience zombie blockbuster that is neither exciting nor scary– unless of course it’s your money riding on it
Directed by Marc Forster.
Starring Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale, Daniella Kertesz and Peter Capaldi.
116 mins.
Brad Pitt casts himself in the Angelina Jolie role here – he’s a globetrotting U.N. ambassador popping up in various crisis zones offering help and support. The crisis here is a zombie epidemic that has brought humanity to its knees and Pitt has been charged with finding its source and maybe its cure. The twist here is that everywhere he goes he brings greater chaos.
After two decades I think most people would agree Pitt has been good value for his superstardom. Occasionally though he is capable of leaving himself looking a right berk and he is barely more dignified here than in the Chanel 5 ads last Christmas. The Max Brooks novel it is based on had a multi-viewpoint perspective, made up of various eye-witness accounts. The film makes it into a total star vehicle. Pitt, with his Jesus hairstyle, is the only man with any answers, insights or initiative. He’s really the only thing in the film; no other performer, living or undead, makes any impact at all. Give the star everything is a scriptwriting fundamental but here it makes him the focus of audience resentment and disappointment at being severely short changed by a summer blockbuster.
As a title World War Z makes a promise: that it will give an epic dimension to the zombie movie. To do so means reconciling two opposing narratives and its failure to do this is at the heart of what is wrong with it. While the blockbuster must build towards ever bigger set pieces and ultimate triumph, the traditional zombie film starts with widespread panic before moving towards a place of confinement and a downbeat ending. The film’s troubled and expensive production history has been widely publicised and centred on an ending that didn’t work. The ending you don’t get is a battle scene in Moscow, which was shot but dumped. It is replaced by a small scale sequence that wouldn’t really satisfy as a conclusion to a mid-season Doctor Who episode and feels like a rip off here.
It is in effect a Transformers movie in denial: big and sweeping but po-faced and unexciting with big gapping spaces where action should be. The opening scenes in Philadelphia, as normality sinks into carnage and chaos, are quite well done but everything that follows is either too dark for you to see anything or marred by mediocre effects and narrative incoherence. Director Forster previously botched Quantum of Solace and though these kind of epic productions are too vast to really go about attributing individual blame for their failure, he just doesn't seem to have much of a feel for these kind of films. Even the zombies are nondescript, as if nobody had put any thought into them.
So you are left with a mass audience zombie blockbuster that is neither exciting nor scary– unless of course it’s your money riding on it
