Director: Marc Forster
Cast: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox
Screenplay: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, Damon Lindelof
116 mins. Rated PG-13 for intense frightening zombie sequences, violence and disturbing images.
Last year saw the release of World War Z, the adaptation of the book by Max Brooks (that is, son of Mel Brooks). World War Z, the book, was a written account full of transcripts, interviews, and news information pertaining to a worldwide outbreak of the living dead and the many people who contributed to finding a solution. World War Z, the film, is a bland and tasteless attempt at a popcorn flick with virtually none of the subtext of the novel for which it is based. There is one main character as opposed to the books cadre of first-person POVs.
It stars Brad Pitt (Inglourious Basterds, Fury) as Gerry Lane, a scientist who just might be able to solve this epidemic, if only he would stop risking his neck and almost dying. We are talking about someone that allows his wife (played by Mireille Enos of TV’s The Killing and If I Stay) and children come dangerously close to death themselves because he cannot protect them. These are really unmotivated, undriven, and underdeveloped characters.
Matthew Fox appears in the film as Parajumper, a role significantly reduced by rewrites from Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods, Cloverfield) and Damon Lindelof (TV’s The Leftovers, Prometheus). Matthew Fox’s character was initially very multifaceted and was supposed to be setup as the villain for a sequel. He was so rewritten and removed from the film that he now has five measly lines of pseudo-exposition. The irony here being that both of these writers worked on Lost, and removed its star from this film completely.
The newly formed screenplay gleans very little from the novel, so much so that the film is practically unrecognizable at this point.
The only major win here is that this film featured Peter Capaldi as W.H.O. Doctor, an in-joke as the filmmakers were well aware of his appointment as the new Doctor Who. Kind of made me giggle.
I hold out hope that the possibility of World War Z 2 may actually get it right, but I don’t know how long I can hope on that. Skip this disappointing fair. There are better zombies.
2/5
-Kyle A. Goethe
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