World War ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I just got back from seeing World War Z, directed by Marc Forster (Machine Gun Preacher, Quantum of Solace) and starring Brad Pitt.  To put it simply, it sucked.  If it were a vampire film that would be good but since we are dealing with Zombies, not so much.

I loved Forster's work with MGP, he did some good work there and Quantum of Solace was not so good but fairly entertaining.  Drew Goddard (BTVS, Angel, Alias, Lost) did some script work and J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) helped with the story.  This combined with the fact that it was based on the very successful book written by Max Brooks makes me think this film should have been a slam dunk of a success.  It wasn't.

The directing was uneven with there being peaks of action and suspense and valleys of pointless plot developments and a lack of a solid thread tying them together.  That is ultimately Forster's responsibility.  JMS is usually a beast with story development but he just came up short with this one and Drew Goddard who is such a gifted writer, couldn't save the film with any witty dialogue that should have rubbed off on him from all of those years working with/for Joss Whedon.

This film had an identity crisis:  did it want to be a zombie film or an Outbreak/Contagion film.  It tried to be both and succeeded at neither.  The beginning of the film starts off pretty much right away with the Zombie outbreak but it is shot so quickly and in such close shots that it was very hard to tell what was going on or see the action that was taking place.  They gave us no time to develop a relationship with or feelings for Brad Pitt's character or his family outside of traditional familial feelings which we had to fill in on our own.  We get info that he used to be some sort of big deal in the intelligence/U.N. world but never really even come close to getting the full story.  We don't get a closer look at the zombies until much later in the film and by that point it is too late to care.

It then tried to turn into a film about a virus outbreak where they were searching for a patient zero.  Of course Pitt's character is leading the expedition even though we still really have no idea what his credentials are.  It takes him to South Korea, Israel and somewhere else I don't even remember because by that point in the film I just wanted it to be over.  Each stop he had just made no sense and the situations he kept getting out of were a far reach even for a fictional apocalyptic movie.

Then we get to the end and it was just that, the end.  It was abrupt with a brief verbal epilogue of basically "we'll see how it goes from here but we have a chance."  Lame!

This film was just an epic fail.  I wouldn't exactly call it a waste of time but from now on, the Walking Dead gets my zombie attention exclusively.

Here is my new rating scale which is how would I recommend you see this film:  Full price, Matinee, Cheap show, Wait for rental or skip it.  Basically a 5 star system.

World War Z gets a Wait for rental (basically 2 out of 5 stars). You will be curious to see this film as I was between the production team (writers/directors...) and Brad Pitt but it is definitely not worth a trip to the theaters.