World War Z Review

24th Jun 2013

We are never far away from the next big budget zombie movie – and this could well be the one with the biggest budget yet. It could also have the lowest rating in terms of age allowance.

Yes the plague/outbreak is back once again – this time we get (like in the Dawn of the Dead remake, and 28 Days Later) fast paced deadites and only Brad Pitt can save us from a horrible un-death.

The moment global panic sets in – we follow Pitt’s scientist as he and his family race for shelter away from the storming dead masses – and thanks to knowing people in the right places, eventually gets off to the high seas where mankind is looking to do battle against this viral threat. But having to earn his keep, Pitt has to go back to dry land to see if they can help source the problem and in doing so find a cure.

The most impressive aspect of World War Z is the fact that it has Brad Pitt in its leading role. The man continues to surprise in his navigation of roles as he continues to speed through his career trajectory. Unpredictable he may be; but the nature of the film though is more problematic.

It seems to mash the existing published narrative right down. To do so they have called upon the likes of (*sighs*) Damon Lindelof to condense what was probably pages of dialogue into a paragraph speech of clunky dialogue from disposable characters. But so clunky is the dialogue it will provoke titters (as will the realization that what has just been said is key to the solution of all the problems in the film).

One of the big issues is the 12A certificate the film has been given. There is barely a drop of blood, or a decent flesh wound on show. Sometimes the direction covers this well in a “it’s what you don’t see” kind of way, but by and large it often just looks like bad lensing of shots or fast editing.

So while there is still the odd decent jump along the way, the film is narrow of vision (which is ironic considering the globe-trotting it does and the fact that it is aimed for an even bigger market).