(Spoiler Alert) World War Z review
I went to see World War Z last night and I was reluctant to do so. The only reason was because a friend of mine, former roommate, really wanted to see it. The reason why I didn't want to see it was because of the trailer, which I then used to compare to the book. I knew it was going to be a marketing vehicle for Brad Pitt and his political and environmental opinions; much like "28 Days Later" was a UK/Anti-war movie.
I ended up being correct. World War Z was a movie which Brad Pitt created to project his views on how humans are ruining the Earth and destroying civilization. It was plastered all over the movie, in the opening scenes, in the dialog, in the visuals and at the very end.
Here is the breakdown:
The visuals were good and it was the most enjoyable part of the movie. At the end of the movie, when the characters are in the WHO lab, the shuffling zombies are the best.
The audio was good, but other than that they weren't any thing special. I just thought they did a good job at the chattering teeth, the "boom boom boom" stuff.
The acting was average, but I give big Kudos to Daniella Kertesz, who played Segen, an Israeli soldier. She was very believable after getting her hand cut off.
The script sucked. It isn't any thing like the book an there were too many hiccups in the movie to make it believable. When I see a zombie movie I want the crap to be scared out of me. This movie isn't scary at all; in fact there were dozens of people laughing around me.
The direction sucked because I believe the director wasn't really directing. As I mentioned previously, this had Brad Pitt's fingerprints all over it and I'm sure the director was taking direction from Brad Pitt on a lot of stuff. After all, it was Brad Pitt's production company which out bid Leonardo DiCaprio for the movie rights.
The believability of the movie sucked because it was too convoluted. They lead you to believe that there was a Korean who got caught up in some black tar (industrial pollution or alien substance?). Then that when you turn in to a zombie you instantly have the ability to jump great distances and have super human strength. All the while telling you that the zombies are dead and have no circulation system? HAR HAR And... that the "infection" is actually looking for a suitable, healthy host to infect (they refuse to attack sick people who are terminal). HAR HAR HAR. And... that the zombies work together like ants do, showing signs of intelligence and social cooperation. HAR HAR HAR HAR!!!!
Sorry people, the more complex you try to make zombies the more unbelievable the story. I'm still scared at night to turn on the lights because of a movie called "Night of the Living Dead" which was made in 1968 for $114,000. World War Z cost $180,000,000 and uses the best of the best for CG and other special effects. Heck, even "28 Days Later" was scarier.
2/5 stars for audio and visual effects.
PS - And Max Brooks is a fucking, rich douchebag for selling out his creative rights for a lump of money.
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max brooks is a shameless
max brooks is a shameless douchebag. i knew that before i read world war z and i loved world war z. lots of great authors have been total tools. not that i necessarily think brooks is that great of an author. i just think he wrote a damn good book (not timeless or anything) and i seriously wonder if he has another one in him. so far all his other books have been blatant pieces of fluff.
i loved the book because of the studs terkel oral history format and that it was more about the humans than the zombies. i refuse to watch the movie ever since i heard they're using sprinting zombies. ZOMBIES CAN'T FUCKING SPRINT! THEY'RE DECOMPOSING! THEIR FEET WOULD SNAP OFF AT THE FUCKING ANKLES!!!!! OK???? christ... brooks even poked fun at the sprinting zombie motif in world war z, in the part where angry humans storm the celebrity compound and the person who first sights them thinks they're zombies and screams something like, "oh my god, they can run!"
also, as has been pointed out, zombies are not intelligent in any way, and the idea that they might be never shows up in brooks's original book. the only kind of remotely believable zombie intelligence that has been hypothesized (by romero) is latent human impulses and habits still rattling around in their rotten brains. they are dead humans somehow reanimated with a compulsion to eat flesh. they certainly are not some kind of new creature spontaneously given a whole new set of instincts, so the idea of them swarming like ants is stupid. a zombie cannot do anything a human cannot--in fact, quite the opposite. so make a movie about the rise of the fucking ant people but DON'T FUCKING CALL THEM ZOMBIES!
fuck...
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
iwbiek wrote:max brooks is a
I first was exposed to his "survival guide" which I purchased for a bunch of friends back in the 90's. I thought it was good and humorous.
I disliked the interview Brooks gave where he said that after Pitt took the rights, Brooks was out of the creative process. He then said, "that is the way things are normally done". I'm like "fuck no". You a fucking writer. Stick up for your fucking creation you ass.
He then went on to say that he didn't want to read the script because he might hate it, then he read part of it and he liked it.
So now he is supporting the movie most likely because of legal issues or money. Asshole.
I totally agree, but not to the point where I would be against different forms of slow shuffling zombies.
The decomposing thing is what I've always said to other people about how zombies might at first be "more human" but as the sickness slow decomposes their body they start to fall apart. First their sight goes and then their ability to walk normal, eventually turning in to mush.
I dislike the way Brooks has gone against his previous work and he did it all for money.
I really hated Will "I'm a douche bag" Smith's reboot of "I am Legend" (vampires caused by an infection) which was the inspiration for Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" (radiation from a NASA satellite). So it goes in Hollywood.
Dude. There were people laughing out loud in the movie theater when they started to see the zombies do Parkour!!!! I don't care what infection they had, the bodies are still human. They have muscle and bone, which tears and breaks.
It was total bullshit how the zombies acted like ants. The one scene, in the trailer, where the zombies are climbing each other to get over the wall? Well when they started to do that I was wondering, if zombies are brain dead then wouldn't they lash out in multiple directions? or even try to scale the wall in multiple areas? Well not to Brad Pitt. He has them climbing on top of each other to build a bridge like ants. Not to forget mentioning we are still talking about human bodies. Bones break under stress and having that much weight on you would crush all the inner zombies causing a collapse of the tower.
The other thing which annoyed me was that they implied that the zombies were looking for a "healthy host" as if they were smelling the people. WTF? How fucking stupid.
The entire working in packs, intelligence and so forth... it's crap.
I'd love to see DiCaprio make this movie. I believe he would have stuck to the original story.
digitalbeachbum wrote:Dude.
yeah, and i didn't mind that stuff in 28 days later because their bodies are still living and their disease causes them to be permanently enraged, which i guess results in constant adrenaline.
i just wish people would stop calling the 28 films "zombie movies." i was also really pissed off by stephen king's cell being marketed as a zombie book.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
iwbiek wrote:digitalbeachbum
Yeah, "28 Days Later" isn't a zombie movie, but people constantly say it is one.
Didn't read Cell.
Wish people would understand where zombies come from and that way they would understand why it sounds dumb to say differently.
It would be like people calling a dragon a wolf. It's literally a different creature.
I found the following blog
I found the following blog on the movie and I think it hits the nail on the head. No one is going to complain about the movie because right now Jolie and Pitt are riding a wave of likability.
http://veganbodyproject.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-brad-pitts-world-war-z-sucks-and.html
Good review. To be honest,
Good review.
To be honest, the guy is right. You want to make money, you lose creative control over your creation. Lucas has the only major work I know of that allowed the creator to retain control. And he worked very hard and had to invent all sorts of cheap special effect tricks and risk bankruptcy to pull that off.
And then he sold it all off to a shit company that hasn't a prayer of doing it justice years later, so even he gave up control in the end.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
The Walking Dead pulls off
The Walking Dead pulls off active zombies well because the zombies aren't actually dead. It's the only work I've seen yet that had any realism at all to it.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Vastet wrote:The Walking
I really, really liked The Walking Dead (on TNT) but now I hate it. It really sucks and it has been going down hill since the first season.
I don't understand how things could go from "freaking awesome" to "this shit sucks cock" in such a short time.
iwbiek wrote: i refuse
Speaking of Christ, when Hollywood makes movies about Jesus and shows him coming back from the dead he always seems to be the picture of health...
ProzacDeathWish wrote:iwbiek
LOL