WORLD WAR Z (2013) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

WORLD WAR Z (2013) movie

Genre              |   Horror

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   116 minutes

Released         |   21 June 2013

cast

​Brad Pitt ... Gerry Lane
Mireille Enos ... Karin Lane
Daniella Kertesz ... Segen
James Badge Dale ... Captain Speke
Ludi Boeken ... Jurgen Warmbrunn
Matthew Fox ... Parajumper
Fana Mokoena ... Thierry Umutoni
David Morse ... Ex-CIA Agent
Elyes Gabel ... Andrew Fassbach
​Peter Capaldi ... W.H.O. Doctor

director

​​Marc Forster

writer

​Matthew Michael Carnahan ... (screenplay) and
Drew Goddard ... (screenplay) &
Damon Lindelof ... (screenplay)
 
Matthew Michael Carnahan ... (screen story) and
J. Michael Straczynski ... (screen story)
 
Max Brooks ... (based on the novel by)

​Ben Seresin ... director of photography
Robert Richardson ... (uncredited)

music

​Marco Beltrami

film editor

​Roger Barton
Matt Chesse

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​540,007,876​  

Australia                 $​​​​​​16,931,207

North America       $​​​​​202,359,711

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movie minutiae

Marc Forster states that he prefers the extended, unrated cut of the film. For him it's not just about the additional blood and gore, it's about the overall intensity compared to the PG-13-rated version. Forster says that although he's proud of the theatrical version, he felt a bit "handcuffed" when he was trying to deliver the toned-down PG-13-rated version.

Paramount executive Marc Evans, director Marc Forster and Adam Goodman, the president of production, did not like the original cut (which has the Russian ending that culminated in a big battle between zombies and humans). All three felt that it was incoherent, abrupt, and a typical Hollywood blockbuster ending that only served to surpass the Jerusalem scenes in scale. They brought in Damon Lindelof to view a rough cut of the film, and he suggested to them either to add new scenes to improve the coherence, or do a complete third-act rewrite and risk additional resource plus re-shoots. Lindelof recalled: "So when I gave them those two roads and they sounded more interested in Road B, I was like, 'To be honest with you, good luck selling that to Paramount." Fortunately, the studio agreed not to spend additional money on finishing the special effects of this climax, but instead use it on a simpler, more personal and tension-driven ending.

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WORLD WAR Z (2013) MOVIE IMAGES

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WORLD WAR Z (2013) STORY SYNOPSIS

​​When former U.N. investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) and his family get stuck in urban gridlock, he senses that it's no ordinary traffic jam. His suspicions are confirmed when, suddenly, the city erupts into chaos. A lethal virus, spread through a single bite, is turning healthy people into something vicious, unthinking and feral. As the pandemic threatens to consume humanity, Gerry leads a worldwide search to find the source of the infection and, with luck, a way to halt its spread.

WORLD WAR Z (2013) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 20 June 2013

​​Pop Movee Rating

WORLD WAR Z starts big and ends small. It’s as simple as that.

The first entry in Brad Pitt’s attempt to build a franchise around his star power will generate mixed responses. Even prior to its release, WORLD WAR Z had attracted a high level of interest in the entertainment media for its budget blow-out and rumours that Brad Pitt and Director Marc Foster had fallen out during the production.

The whole third act of the film was rewritten by LOST’s Damon Lindelof & Drew Goddard and reshot in an attempt to create a more compelling film and the change in tone is so significant that it almost becomes an entirely different movie.
The film is based, albeit loosely, on the World War Z novel by Max Brooks. The novel is set ten years after WWZ and tells the story from the view of multiple storytellers, whereas the film is about the outbreak of the Zombie pandemic and tells the story of the man who found a way to fight back.

The story is quick to thrust Pitt into the action, playing Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator whose background is part-analyst, part-Doctor and part-secret agent. This may seem rather contrived, but it helps to make the Lane character more authentic, as he is faced with a number of life-threatening situations with his family and later in the film when he is in search of a cure for the “Zombie” pandemic.

In the First Act, Lane, his wife and two young daughters are among the first to see the outbreak close-up as downtown Philadelphia is among the first US cities to be hit. Carnage and mayhem follow, as Lane and his family battle their way out of the city in an effort to make contact with Lane’s former colleagues at the United Nations as he seeks to get his family out of harm’s way.

The Lanes make it as far as Newark, New Jersey but are forced to take refuge in an apartment building through the night as they await a helicopter airlift off the top of the building.

The apartment building sequence is excellent and provides some heart-stopping moments as Gerry places himself between his family and their pursuers. There’s a scene in the sequence where Gerry races to the edge of the building’s roof after he has ingested the blood of one of the zombies that is a great punctuation mark for everything that has happed in the first part of the story.

Small story points like Gerry counting off how many seconds it takes from first bite to complete infection become important later as he learns more about where the outbreak started and how it made its way around the globe.

​The Lanes plus the young son of the family with whom they stayed in the apartment building are eventually air-lifted to an aircraft carrier that is part of a fleet that is sitting off the East Coast of the US. Here, Gerry reunites with his former boss at the UN, played by Fana Mokoena, who tells him that the only way he and his family can stay on board is if Gerry agrees to help with the effort to find a cure to the zombie pandemic. At first Gerry is reluctant, as he knows it will be met with protest from his wife, however, he convinces her that it’s in the family’s best interest otherwise they’re all going to be sent back to the mainland. With the knowledge that his family is safe, Gerry sets off with a small team for South Korea in search of the outbreak’s Patient Zero.

​The film’s second act is a straight forward action piece, as Lane first makes his way in and out of a US military installation in South Korea. It is at the base that Lane learns a great deal more about where the outbreak originated and the techniques used to evade the zombies.

Lane also learns from an incarcerated CIA operative, played by veteran character actor David Morse, being held at the base that both North Korea and Israel has successfully found ways to combat the pandemic. North Korea, he is told, simply pulled the teeth from every citizen in country, whereas Israel was able to fortify the Jerusalem wall to protect itself. Lane decides to head for the friendlier of the two countries and flies to Israel.

Upon arriving in Israel, Gerry meets with senior Mossad agent Jurgen Warmbrunn, played by Ludi Boeken. The agent explains to Gerry that he is Israel’s “Tenth Man”, responsible for questioning the other nine most senior people in the Israeli government and, basically, doing the opposite to whatever they want to do. In this instance, it was to fortify Jerusalem against the pandemic outbreak when everybody else laughed at the mention of the word zombie.

Unfortunately, the city’s security is only momentary as the joyous prayer of the survivors inside the city’s walls attracts the zombies and they begin to throw themselves on top of each other to build a zombie ladder that scales the huge walls. Realising they are compromised, Warmbrunn tells Segen, the young Israeli female soldier who is Lane’s escort played by Daniella  Kertesz, to get him back to the airport and in the air. Lane unlocks an important piece of the puzzle as he flees through the streets of Jerusalem. From a distance, he sees a young boy with no hair who is obviously suffering from some form of cancer, but the zombies completely disregard his presence, as if not even seeing him. Gerry’s observation is a vital clue and becomes more important in the third act.

Lane and Segen are chased through the streets and manage to get to the airport, but not before the young soldier has been bitten on the hand. In an act of quick brutal thinking, Lane takes the soldier’s combat knife and hacks off her hand before the zombie virus can spread through her body.

The amputation of Segen's hand is pure Hollywood. With only a little more than wrapping her wrist in a scarf, the audience is expected to believe that this blood-loss from this sort of a wound is minimal. This would not be the case in reality and is one of those story points that are hard to let go because she is this way for the rest of the film, but still manages to maintain pace with Gerry all the way.

The final big set piece of the film happens at the end of the second act as a zombie has managed to get on board the Gerry’s flight via the cargo hold. It’s not until the flight is nearly at its end with Gerry convincing the pilots to divert to Cardiff so he can get a World Health Organisation facility.

Unfortunately, a stewardess unleashes the zombie in the passenger cabin by opening the cargo hold elevator door. Gerry realises quickly that a zombie is on board and tells everyone to be quiet, as they frantically stack suitcases on top of each other to build a wall between them and the other cabin. One of the passengers is a little too zealous, pushing too hard and knocking a case over. The noise immediately alerts the zombies and they begin an all-out attack on the front cabin of the plane...

Unable to stem the tide, Gerry is forced to use a hand grenade that Segen had with her when they got on board the plane. The grenade rips a hole in the side of the plane and rids it of the zombie threat, but the pilot is unable to control the stricken aircraft and is forced to make an emergency crash landing. The force of the impact rips the plane apart killing the majority of those left; except for Gerry and Segen. Gerry is badly wounded as a shard of metal has punctured his side, but the pair manage to find their way to the World Heath Organisation facility.

It is at this point the movie changes in tone, pacing, look, feel – whatever best describes the feeling that the audience is now watching an entirely different film. Yes, Brad Pitt and Daniella Kertesz are still in the film, but everything else changes.

WORLD WAE Z goes from being a globe-trotting action movie to a more intimate affair where the character exchanges have more meaning and enough dialogue happens to help the audience establish a connection with the secondary characters working at the WHO facility.

Even the interaction with the zombies becomes more intimate in the third act, as Gerry comes face-to-face with more than one in his effort to find a solution to the pandemic. For audiences expecting a large-scale, all-out spectacle, the finale of World War Z will be disappointing. For those who like the idea that an action hero can work something out without having to resort to blowing everything up, WORLD WAR Z will be a welcome change.

There’s no doubt that the conclusion of this film is designed to feed into ongoing stories that could be explored in follow-up films.

Brad Pitt has shown before that he is capable of doing action well. While WORLD WAR Z has faults, it also shows enough promise that, with a well thought-through story, it could indeed have the potential to be an ongoing franchise for Pitt to revisit in the same way that Matt Damon did with Bourne and the way Tom Cruise has with the Mission Impossible films. Pitt is pretty low-key as Lane, but that’s a good thing as the story wants you to believe he’s a family-man who has given up a dangerous job to make sure the most important people to him are safe.

The film’s production values are strong and the film’s rumoured $200 million budget is up on the screen for all to see.

The first half of the movie especially has a lot going on and the crowd scenes of Philadelphia and Newark would have been difficult and expensive, as they involve hundreds of people mixed with CGI zombies. Reading through the end credits, it becomes clear the scale of the film’s production. The use of naval ships could not be an easy feat and it’s a credit to the producers of the film that they chose to use as much real equipment as possible.

Unfortunately, a lot of the large scale CGI work is not up to a standard suitable for the big screen. There’s no sense of threat in the zombie attacks as they are too easily identified as “animated”. There also seems to be a divergent look to the zombies throughout the film; which may have been intentional, but probably a result of the reshoot. The zombies in the first two-thirds of the film are much more human looking, where the zombies at the WHO facility look like a cross between a vampire and a zombie that has been the subject of premature aging.

WORLD WAR Z is an ambitious film. It forsakes telling a story about a zombie attack and, instead, tells the story of the man who headed the mission to find a solution. It’s not a truly great film, but it works hard to be entertaining and puts its leading man to good use. Pitt, as always, is hard not to like, as he shows he’s an all-rounder who can handle himself in any situation. Unlike Tom Cruise, Pitt has a broader acting range and can go from low to high and back again more convincingly than any other major star with the exception of Leonardo di Caprio. The supporting cast are good but only get enough to keep the plot moving forward. The scientists at the WHO facility get the most to do and are the beneficiaries of the third act rewrite.

WORLD WAR Z (2013) USEFUL LINKS

World War Z (film) - Wikipedia
​World War Z (2013) - IMDb
​World War Z (2013) - Rotten Tomatoes​

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