‘World War Z’ (2013) Movie Review: WWZ is Horror Ambien

Directed by Marc Forster

Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan

Starring: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, and Daniella Kertesz

United Nations employee Gerry Lane traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to destroy humanity itself.

SPOILERS – LIKE IT MATTERS

Brad Pitt plays a former UN agent that left his life of governmental stress behind to become a stay at home dad. Oddly enough, when Gerry cooks the family a big breakfast and they fail to place their dirty dishes in the sink, this is the thing that gets the biggest reaction from Gerry. You’d think the possible end of the world, several close calls, zombies in his face, or crashing planes would trump the maddening thought of scrubbing congealed syrup off a few plates – nope.

Gerry makes the painful decision to leave his family for the sake of the world. Maybe Gerry can find the source of the infection and halt the pandemic. With the future life window narrowing, Gerry must globe-trot to several exotic locations plagued with danger and near misses along the way. I’ll admit, for a few minutes, I thought this was going to be an intelligent zombie film, but the whole thing was just impressively unimpressive. The film jerkily shifts from first gear to fifth in the films first five minutes, potentially a good sign, but Pitt’s mellow to a fault demeanor is not becoming of a UN officer of his supposed caliber.

There’s scene where Gerry’s wife calls him on his special military phone, even after he makes it clear he’ll be the one to call once per day, her call’s chirping ringtone alerts the local zombies and they kill several SEALS and other people in Pitt’s crew. If not for the call, no one would have died, yet Gerry makes no mention of this. Come on. Any normal person could have said “Hey, honey, I find myself in life or death situations, so please let me call you.” He saves her the guilt of the murder call – I found that laughable and completely out of character. Grossly irresponsible and disrespectful if nothing else.

The film’s climax, and I use that term loosely, is literally ten minutes of Pitt sneaking around a lab, trying to avoid zombies, and when he completes his ridiculous task, he simply walks into the ambiguous WWZ sunset, a place where loose ends aren’t tied up and no real message sticks with the viewer. Zombie films are getting as stale as vampire mediums, and we all get the fast zombie is played out. If you want to see a nerve-wracking rescue mission, even the unpopular third season of The Walking Dead is light years more intense. Even with the global scale of the film and the ant-like masses of infected creatures storming the literal gates wears off quickly. Films are based on tension and release, and sadly, WWZ has neither. I feel like my wallet and time was the only thing eaten by zombies this round.