Behind the paternal exterior, Gerry is a retired United Nations investigator who has put the days of chasing war crimes in the world's worst hotbeds behind him. By raising the cinematic stakes to a global level, though extremely far short of the original novel's worldly depth, Wor ld War Z is a spectacular success to push the potential of this genre and fad forward with a flashy and exciting summer blockbuster.ĭirector Marc Forster ( Finding Neverland, Monster's Ball, The Kite Runner, Quantum of Solace) introduces us to Gerry Lane, played by Brad Pitt (who's also sticking his financial neck out as a producer on the flick), a doting father of two lovely daughters and husband to Karin (Mireille Enos of HBO's Big Love). World War Z, in all its big summer action splendor, brings the zombie fad to a bigger stage than anything Romero envisioned 45 years ago with Night of the Living Dead. W orld War Z gives this cultural epidemic of lifelessness a big boost of life-giving excitement. Time will tell, but I see the latter of those two scenarios happening. World War Z will either be the saturated peak of excess before the trend's inevitable downfall or the newest tipping point and springboard to bigger and better things for the zombie craze. The success or failure of this blockbuster will determine the next course for this fad. This is the mainstream, a week after Man of Steel, up against Pixar's Monsters University, and a week before the big Fourth of July weekend. Zombies has never been on a bigger stage than this. In that Warm Bodies review, I stated that the biggest litmus test for this zombie fad would come with the blockbuster action drama World War Z. The show has gained a greater-than-cult popularity with every season. The steadiest brainy meal for the zombie-lovers diet has been AMC's The Walking Dead on cable television. It's been a slow build-up from multiple George Romero remakes to blockbusters like I Am Legend over the years, but zombies have hit their mark. At least the author isn’t mad, so I guess that’s worth something.Back in February, while reviewing the enjoyable zombie romance Warm Bodies , I started to outline the pop culture fad that zombies have become over the last decade or so, thanks to the horror sub-genre's unprecedented success in film, television, and print media. Still, I can’t help but wonder what a movie that was even closer to the source material would have been like. It’s a really fun, action-packed zombie flick. Most zombie movies are either one or the other, but not both.Īs mentioned in the intro, I still really enjoy the movie. This life after the war was really intriguing to me in the novel, and it stinks that the movie decided to keep everything in the present since there is so much that could be mined for a movie that takes place both during and after the carnage. But following World War Z, zombies could be found all over the place, including underwater and even in the mountains. It’s not as bad as the initial outbreak, and some countries are handling post-war life better than others (like Iceland is packed to the brim with zombies). After the war, there are still millions of zombies wandering the world. The Book Spends A Great Length Of Time Going Over What Happens After The WarĪnd this was probably the most upsetting aspect for me about the movie, since this was my favorite part about the book. There is a scene in the film involving Jerusalem that is kind of in the book, but it’s only skin deep and doesn’t tackle any of the excellent and biting social commentary that Max Brooks presents in his story. And none of this is in the movie! Instead, we’re given a pretty intense action/horror flick that has pretty much nothing to say. The United States, for example, is woefully unprepared.Īnd because it’s an election year in the book (I’m serious), the powers that be don’t want to cause a panic, so it gets a lot worse in the US (double welp!) than in some other nations. At first, people start just calling it an advanced form of rabies ( African rabies, to be specific), and different nations react differently to it. First, while nobody really knows the true origins of the zombie plague in the novel (though, there have been cave paintings of zombies in this universe), the pandemic makes its first modern appearance in China (welp!) and then gradually spreads itself around the rest of the world. World War Z is a very political book, and if you read it today, you’ll likely find a lot of eerie parallels with modern day times. There Is No Biting Social Commentary In The Movie
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