Movie:
World War Z
DVD Release:
Sept. 17, 2013

Synopsis: Gerry Lane, played by Brad Pitt, is a former United Nations employee who must leave his family to help find the source of the sudden zombie pandemic. As entire nations crumble around them, Lane and his companions race against time to find the source, and solution, to this sudden world-wide outbreak.
I like zombies. They are pretty cool in my book. I also like media about zombies — watching AMC’s The Walking Dead with my fiancée got me through the spring semester this year. Logically, I then expected to like World War Z.

The Pit (or Pitt)
Just in concept, World War Z falls into the pit of taking an already-developed niche and pushing it a step forward into mainstream media. We didn’t really need another zombie film, nor did we necessarily even want one, but the potential for money to be made was there and someone had to jump on it.
Just to make sure initial interest in the film could be obtained, who better to cast than Brad Pitt as the lead role? Well, for this character probably… anyone. When I think about the concepts for this film and the potential it had, I can see quite a few actors in his place; Gerard Butler, Bruce Willis, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, or heck, even Sylvester Stallone would have fit the role of an ex-U.N. operative that helps fight off a zombie apocalypse.
So in a sense, World War Z was doomed (no pun intended) to give off some disappointment, but I wanted to give it a chance to surprise me anyway.

Falling Flat
One thing many films struggle with when focusing on a single family’s (or person’s) story is being too slow-paced, trying to cover a lot of background information. World War Z took a different approach to this. While it did focus primarily on the Lane family throughout the entire film (which is a bit odd for a zombie apocalypse movie) it didn’t spend too long on their story. Instead, probably 5 minutes maximum of screen time was spent on their story, with only small developments later in the film.
There were multiple characters’ stories that could have been explored more that would have made them more relatable. Even Brad Pitt’s character Gerry Lane had a very flimsy and vague background. He’s a father of two who had some mysterious vague job going to “bad places” for the United Nations that he retired from. That is all.
Lane’s role doesn’t even make much sense. He’s the main character of the film, and one would expect him to be the “hero” and to do a lot of awesome action scenes in this action thriller movie. Anytime I think about the action scenes in the film, it’s actually pretty difficult to think of a memorable one. I can’t quite tell if this is due to the writing or Pitt’s acting, but Gerry Lane just felt like this passive guy who got sent out on a quest and does everything he can to get others to do the work for him. Unfortunately this also means getting almost everyone he comes into contact with killed.
All of the characters that get any significant amount of screen time end up falling pretty flat as the film progresses.

The Action
As I said, no time is wasted on silly storytelling in World War Z. Instead we as an audience are fed action, and a ton of it. From about 10-20 minutes into the film until the end, there’s almost non-stop action.
As much as I love zombie films, I love a good action thriller more. World War Z never lets you catch a breath, though. The film has multiple, intense action scenes back to back (to back) alongside some all-out suspenseful scenes.
I literally found myself having to pause the film multiple times throughout just to catch myself and just go take a breather. More time could have really been given to proper story development and a bit less of the action scenes.

The Fallout
The ending of the movie was a giant breath of fresh air, and yet the biggest disappointment. The previously mentioned non-stop action and suspense went on until there were only 10 minutes left in the film. That amount of time is never enough for a proper resolution in any storytelling medium.
To avoid proper storytelling again, World War Z takes a move from Oblivion and uncharacteristically spends the final scenes reviewing every place shown in the film with a voice over narration by the lead role, Lane. In a film, the best medium to use “show, don’t tell,” we were told the ending to the film instead of actually given it.
Overall, despite being a heavily-mainstream movie built around a kind of niche concept, World War Z had potential. But due to a complete lack of storytelling and character development, and an over-reliance on intense action scenes and the actor for the lead role, the film fell flat on its face.
If you’re someone who enjoys action films (or Brad Pitt) but has never really had an interest in zombie films before, then World War Z might be for you, but tread lightly anyway. If you’re actually looking for a solid zombie film, well, keep looking.