Review: WORLD WAR Z

WORLD WAR Z
Two out of Four Stars
Directed by Marc Forster
Starring: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kurtesz, James Badge Dale
PG-13 for intense frightening zombie sequences, violence and disturbing images.
Verdict: Brad Pitt's Marc Forster-directed zombie epic finally reveals itself after a famously tumultuous production, and the result is scattershot, with a cripplingly inconsistent story flow and the basic pitfalls of making zombie terror for a PG-13 rating (while also showing ingenuity for getting such ideas across), but there are also undeniably astonishing sights of zombie apocalyptic mayhem and destruction on an incredibly massive scale and Forster's direction provides great moments of nerve-wracking intensity.

WORLD WAR Z is a strange beast and was always destined to be.  Writing the first draft of the screenplay, writer J. Michael Straczynski described the book on which the film is derived as, "[reading] like a UN Report."  The book, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, written by Max Brooks (son of comedy filmmaker Mel Brooks), is intended as exactly that; it is a pseudo-historical account, comprised of personal accounts of a zombie apocalypse.
Zombie movies are traditionally low-budget affairs, rarely with budgets upwards of $30 million.  The first major zombie film was George A. Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), made on a shoestring budget, and his 1978 follow-up, DAWN OF THE DEAD was produced on the modern equivalent of about $1.7 million.  Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD, which can be partially-credited with reinvigorating the zombie sub-genre, was made for about $26 million and was a major hit with a worldwide gross of $102 million.  WORLD WAR Z was greenlit with a budget of $125 million, a very large budget for a zombie film to begin with, but over the course of a very troubled production, including extensive re-writes and re-shoots, the estimated tally reached around $190 million.  At best, it might have been able to make back its budget.
By the time I went to see it though, WORLD WAR Z had already far exceeded expectations with a $66 million opening weekend gross, even up against MONSTERS UNIVERSITY and the second week for MAN OF STEEL.  Critics had even been favorable to it overall, so I was favorably interested myself, however, having seen it now, I cannot fully recommend it.  I'm not very partial to the zombie genre though, and that information may be useful to a reader investigating whether or not to spend the time and money.  I love SHAUN OF THE DEAD, and I enjoyed ZOMBIELAND, and on a moderate level, the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and 28 DAYS LATER, but I'm pretty indifferent to the rest.  The zombie genre generally functions as a justifiable scenario for gory carnage (you get the human gore and such, but the stipulation that the zombies are soulless and technically not "human"), but in the finer cases, with socio-political commentary, but for WORLD WAR Z to fit the desired PG-13 rating, gory carnage must be replaced with something less direct, namely, suspense, that being the intention at least.
Unlike this past February's zombie rom-com, WARM BODIES, though, WORLD WAR Z has the benefit of a widely-scoped aesthetic, which justifies a less intimate type of violence, and when it sticks with this advantage, the thrills are awesome.  The loose plot, follows former (as of recent) U.N. investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) as he traverses the globe in the midst of a worldwide zombie epidemic to locate the source of the virus.  Early into the film, as the epidemic first makes itself known, there are astonishing and intense scenes of city-scale destruction as legions of zombies swarm the streets, indiscriminately feasting on the uninfected and wreaking havoc in their bustling numbers.  These scenes clearly use CG zombies rather than live actors in makeup, but in some ways, it works to make them seem more unnerving.  The more intimate scenes much more troublesome for this PG-13 zombie thriller though; as director Marc Forster tries hard to convey the strongest idea of ghastly horror without actually showing it, the effect comes off as coy and distracting.  The zombies who do appear as actors in makeup are gruesome enough, but, and maybe it's just me, but the sounds that they make (most notably in these closeup cases) are like inhaling while vocalizing, and it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
The greatest weakness of the film is definitely in its plot structure though, and in a film so convoluted in the creation of its story process, it's not very apparent where exactly things have gone wrong, though it can probably be attributed to something in the rewriting stage.  There isn't a lot of story; it really is just Pitt's paper-thin character traveling the world between a small several locations, talking to people about the virus and then bolting once zombies break into whatever stronghold he's in at the time.  It's insubstantial and messy, and at times, more than a little convenient.  Furthermore, the conclusion borders on being too dumb, even for a summer blockbuster.  There are a few scenes involving Lane's family, being kept on an aquatic Army base of sorts, and with little going on there either, but they keep reminding us that they are there too.
To his credit, Pitt still makes an alright leading man, even when his character has minimal scripted personality, background or particular character traits to speak of.  But even Pitt can't bear the weight of a would-be epic all by himself.