[center][img]http://bristowbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/WORLD-WAR-Z-Poster.jpg[/img][/center]

Overall Impression: A Terrible Movie

Zombies have become clich. At first they were the go-to monster for the early 2000s horror scenario, but like all good things (with the exception of cocaine) the more they got used, the more boring they got. I think the absolute nadir of the zombie crazy has to have been [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1588173/]Warm Bodies,[/url] a 2013 retelling of Romeo and Juliet featuring a zombie named R in the Romeo Role. Yeah, we can blame Twilight for the Supernatural boy falls in love with a human girl thing being popular, but zombies were the other half of the equation. This review doesnt intend to be a full discussion of the history of the zombie in cinema. All Im going to say is that the modern zombie craze started in 2002 with the excellent 28 Days Later, and continued with one of the few remakes I actually like, 2004s Day of the Dead. So zombies were a hot property in 2006 when Max Brooks published World War Z in 2006.

World War Z is a book I love. Its a good horror tale, and its an epistolary story which is always fun to work through if the author is really good with character voice and a solid overall narrative structure. And Max Brooks is. The Battle of Yonkers and the Paris catacombs chapters are great and very scary for different reasons. So I was really excited when I heard that it had been optioned for a movie very quickly. This was back in 2007, and I was even more pleased when I heard that J. Michael Straczynski was doing the screenplay.

Notice I said 2007 in the previous paragraph. And this was a movie that came out in 2013. A six year development time was the first sign that there were some troubles with the project. The second sign that this was going in the wrong direction was when I learned that Brad Pitt had been cast in the role of Gerry Lane. This is a character that does not appear in the book. I realized right away that World War Z isnt the sort of story that can have a straight adaptation, but I honestly was expecting them to condense the different viewpoint characters into a small but workable cast. But it could still work, and Brad Pitt is an actor that can do good work. See, for example, 12 Monkeys, Interview with the Vampire, and 7 Years in Tibet. But hes an actor that needs a strong director, otherwise he tends to just play Brad Pitt in every roll. Again, thats not necessarily a deal breaker, but a good lead can elevate a mediocre project, but put a bad performance in the lead of a mediocre movie, and you get middle of the road average.

The third thing I learned about the movie was that it was set to be directed by Marc Forster. He also directed the Bond movie Quantum of Solace, and the only thing I remember about that one is that the action direction was borderline incompetent. But Im usually willing to give a director a few chances to win me over, and there were some good touches in Quantum.

Then the movies release date got pushed back again and again, and then the studio spent $20 million on reshoots because the execs werent happy with the original cut of the movie. According to one site, things got so bad that Brad Pitt refused to speak with Marc Forster, and the two of them would only deal through intermediaries. Pitt and Forster both denied this, but both of them had a vested personal and professional interest in doing publicity and promotion for the movie, so Im not sure how much stock to put in the denials. Then again, you can also get great work when theres a lot of personal animosity behind the scenes of a movie; Bette Davis and Joan Crawford absolutely hated each other, and physically assaulted each other on the set of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. So even at that point I was just thinking that the movie could still work. But it didnt.

Alright, finally, lets talk about the movie this review is supposed to be about. There are a lot of ways you can deal with a review, but I choose to go chronologically in this case. Im going to chronologically discuss the flaws and issues I had with the movie. Ill go on at length about the ones I think were were the most seriously damaging to the film.

The movie opens with an uninspired scene setting news footage montage. The common theme connecting the news segments are mans ecological impact on the world interspaced with growing human self-absorption. I called this uninspired and boring, because opening your movie with a news montage has gotten clich at this point. I liked it in Watchmen, and even in the Edge of Tomorrow I didnt mind it. You can use it to introduce your setting and character, but in World War Z there is absolutely no reason for it being there.

Then we meet the protagonist, Gerry Lane, and the movie hits me with another clich right away. The Main character and loving spouse are asleep in bed and get playfully pounced by their adorable children. In this scene, we are told exactly two pieces of information. First, Gerry is a family man. He loves his family he does. The second piece is that he used to be some sort of investigator for the UN. The scene ends with the family finishing breakfast and driving off.

Thats not a characterization. Thats the lazy way of trying to suggest that theres a character. He loves his family so therefore we should care about him when his familys in danger. It doesnt help that his wife is barely an afterthought, and the young actors who play Gerrys daughters Can. Not. Act. I hate child actors. There are some good ones, but shoving kids front and center as objects to imperil is lazy screen writing. And just as Im getting ready to clench my butthole after this one-two punch of clichs, we find out that one of Gerrys daughters is an asthmatic. Never saw that one before. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. When the most recent example of this trope is an M. Night Shyamalan movie, youre in trouble. And it turns out to be even more pointless than involving the climax of the movie around an asthma attack; since the daughters asthma only serves as a plot device to move the family from one Act I zombie crisis to the next as theyre forced to stop at a pharmacy to get her a new inhaler after her old one gets abandoned. And were not even done. Were not four minutes into this movie, and I cannot believe how lazy and how clichd and how stupidly its stealing from other movies. Because, you see, Gerrys younger daughter has a stuffed rabbit toy that counts. The second I hear it, I know exactly whats going to happen. The rabbit is going to start counting exactly as soon as someone gets bitten by a zombie, and the protagonist is going to figure out how long it takes someone to transform into a zombie.

Just like in 28 Days Later. Jesus Fucking Christ. Were not even five minutes into this movie and I hate it already. But even though Ive never liked it gets better later as a persuasive argument about a movie or a book with a weak and infuriating beginning, Im usually willing to go at least 15% into the content before I decide to stop reading or watching. I swear, thats the only thing that kept me going past minute five of this movie.

OK, so Gerry and family drive off, and we come to the outbreak of zombie action. Im going to put up the video of how the plot gets kick started before I talk about it. But I want to point out that the first scene of the movie, after the opening credit montage that serves no purpose other than to annoy me, lasts less than two minutes. Thats two minutes to develop the main character, and the movie fails utterly. Once I saw that first explosion, I realized that this was not a movie that cared about making me connect emotionally with Gerry Lane. Compressing the first act by trimming away the action that leads into the initial incident of the plot is a horrible decision to make from a story and a character perspective. A movie that compresses the first two acts and extends the third act climax can work. Look at Die Hard. Its entirely a third act climax movie. But also notice how much time is spent developing the character of John McClane and showing his strained relationship with his wife, both of whom are actual characters. World War Z has no such interest in letting us get to know Gerry Lane, because there is no Gerry Lane. Theres just Brad Pitt in Million Dollar Zombie Movie.

Ok, heres the scene. Remember, this is less than two minutes into the movie, not counting the opening news montage:

[center]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymLYKrBCbmk[/center]

Ok, did you notice how incompetently that happened? Here were seeing Forsters inability to do an action sequence. Here is the clip at the 45 second mark:

[center][img]http://s23.postimg.org/6cnixng8a/WWZ1.jpg[/img][/center]

Look behind the cop at the street behind him. Its cars bumper to bumper, about 200 to 300 feet, where the street ends. Also, please note, that the time stamp on the video is at 45 seconds.

Now heres the same scene, three seconds later:

[center][img] http://s21.postimg.org/asxf2c9d2/WWZ2.jpg[/img][/center]

In the first picture, the cop had just finished giving the line of dialogue, Get in your car right now. Brad Pitt gets in the car, and the cop pulls up along side him and starts to say, Remain in your vehicle. The counter is at 48 seconds. Its three seconds later, and the cop is hit by a truck.

Where did that truck come from? It wasnt in the shot when we saw the street behind the cop, it literally came out of nowhere when the director was bored of all this character stuff and wanted to start the mindless zombie running action. I cannot begin to describe how lazy this is and how much it annoys me.

Then Brad Pitt starts to drive after the ninja truck, since it seems to be an unstoppable force of nature and is plowing cars aside left and right. Theres a really bad, obvious audio dub here, but whatever. Even worse than that is the fact that the action goes into HYPDERDRIVEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! From the moment Brad Pitt pulls out behind the ninja truck, to the time when he crashes the car and something resembling a normal pace resumes, forty five seconds pass. And this is why I rented the DVD: I counted 46 jump cuts in that time. I cannot begin to describe how hectic, disjointed, confusing, disorienting, nauseating, and incoherent this style of film-making is. We cant hold on a single shot for longer than one second in our action sequences, no sir.

But Rex, if we dont use tight shots and quick cuts, how is the audience going to know that theyre supposed to be tense and excited?

Brad Pitts children continue to make a strong argument for post-birth abortion by screaming and being idiot.

OK, so Brad Pitt gets out of the car, and we see a scene of an RV pulling off into the middle of the road. The drivers door opens, and the driver falls out, and Brad Pitt thinks, OK, I can steal this RV and get my family out of here. But I have no idea whats going on. Why did the driver get out? If you watch this scene, you can see a single shot of the car that pulls up in front of the RV, and theres clearly a gun pointed out the window:[center][img]http://s15.postimg.org/d7d9bvzve/WWZ3.jpg[/ig][/center]

But the editing of this movie is so incompetent that there is neither a gunshot sound effect nor a muzzle flash. I think were supposed to assume that the passenger in the car shot the driver of the RV, which is why he tumbled out. I guess. But whatever, Brad Pitt needs a new car so just stop thinking about it and eat some more popcorn.

Brad Pitt steals the RV and, just like I called it, the stuffed rabbit gets activated and counts out the timing of a zombie transformation. Fucking great. You know, when 28 Days Later did it, it was legitimately tense and heartbreaking because you were just told how quickly the transformation happened, and the payoff was when a beloved character got infected and had 20 seconds to say goodbye to his daughter and beg for a mercy kill before he could transform and try to kill her. It was legitimately emotional and upsetting. Here there is no payoff.

One other thing happens; we see zombies attack people in cars. They hurl themselves through the windshields and bash their heads into the glass until the glass breaks. Just remember that for later.

Anyway, Brad Pitt drives off, and we pull back and see Philedelphia in flames. And then, just to continue ripping of popular things, we get that Inception sound chord. You know:

[center]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=830I9w7I7wM[/center]

So the next scene shows Brad Pitt driving the RV down a rural two lane road in Pennsylvania. How did they get out of the city? I would figure that a lot of people would be fleeing the urban center and it might be difficult.

Dont worry about it Rex. If you were meant to know how they got out of the city the director would hav shown it. Just dont think about it and eat more popcorn.

But what annoys me even further is that just then Gerry gets a phone call from Thierry, his former boss at the UN. Jerry says that theyre on 95. Oy. I live on the East Coast of the United States. [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_95 ]I-95[/url] is one of the largest and longest stretches of highway in the US. It runs from Florida to Maine, following the Atlantic Coast. It connects Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. in the north and Richmond, Savannah, Jacksonville, and Miami in the south. It is a big, big highway. At no point in Pennsylvania does I-95 become a two lane road in a rural part of the state. And there isnt a state road 95 in Pennsylvania, either. I wouldnt care what road they were on, but you brought it up World War Z.

So Gerry and family need to stop in a pharmacy in Newark to get his daughter a new inhaler. Its awfully convenient that she didnt have an asthma attack in Philadelphia when she was in a car crash and running for her life from zombies, you know, when you would expect an asthmatic to have breathing trouble. But she gets an attack on the imaginary I-95 two lane road in the country, so whatever.

The Lane family pull into a drugstore, and the exterior shot shows that its late afternoon or early evening. Theres an absolutely inconsequential scene inside the drug store, but it takes no longer than five minutes. When the Lane family comes out of the drug store, its nighttime all of a sudden.

Relax, Rex. Im sure that if the director wanted you to care about time and accurate portrayal of distance he would have shown it. Just stop thinking about it and eat some more popcorn.

The RV is gone, so Gerry and the family have to run from zombies and take refuge in an apartment building in which the stairway is blockaded by garbage and debris exactly like in 28 days later. A Hispanic gamily give them sanctuary, but I guess we dont need to see how anyone but Gerry is dealing with things because we never learn the familys names except for the little boy Tommy, and they decide not to come with Gerry when he leaves. His UN boss is sending a helicopter for him, you see.

It was at this point that I came to the conclusion that the kids playing Gerrys daughters cant act. See, after running for their lives from zombies after an exhausting, confusing, and crazy day, I would expect a kid to start crying. I know that people react to stress differently, but I find it amazing that bad child actors never take roles where they would be required to cry on camera. From this point on, the kidsa re going to spend the majority of their time on camera asleep. I guess it spares us having to see them act badly, but it also underlines how the child characters are just props in Act I of this story.

OK, so Gerry and family leave and the Spanish family that hosted them for the night is immediately attacked by zombies. Gerry is an investigator for the UN, remember, and hes used to living in dangerous situations. So when he checks a door leading to the stairwell of this apartment building and up to the roof, he looks every way except for directly in front of him, where a zombie rushes forward and attacks him. Its the ninja truck all over again. The scene was dim, but there is now way he could have not seen the zombie if it had just being hanging out right in front of him. And why did the zombie just give him enough time to look around and relax just a little before jump-scaring him. Did the zombie study jump scares before getting bitten? Is that how it knew to wait just that little bit before jumping forward?

Somehow, the son of the Spanish family survives and joins the Lane family on the roof. Somehow. He has no reaction whatsoever to the death of his parents or the fact that his mom and dad have become zombies and are shot by Army soldiers as theyre being airlifted off the roof. Gerry gets contaminated by zombie blood during this sequence, and heres the payoff to knowing how long the transformation takes. He puts himself on the edge of the roof, ready to hurl himself off, but doesnt need to because apparently swallowing zombie blood wont do the trick, you have to get bitten. This is stupid.

So Act I ends. Act II actually gets somewhat better. Im also three thousand words into my review at this point, so what I think Im going to do is stop writing and post this. I probably only need one more post since my complaints about Act II and III are probably not as severe as the hatred I feel for Act I. I may do three posts in total and make the final post in the series a reflection of the movie and its impact and success.

But my overall review of this movie wont change.

Terrible. Just terrible.

Part 2

So when Brad Pitt and family are airlifted

Stop. Wait a second. Look what I just wrote up there. When Brad Pitt and his family are airlifted. I didnt sit down and write this review all in one go. What I normally tend to do is shotgun bullet points onto a list and get as many ideas out on the screen in front of me and go back through them and develop them into paragraphs and connecting themes. The point of my outline is just to empty my brain of ideas and get the words out as quickly as possible. So I turn off spellchecker because Im not editing at this point, Im just putting words on paper. So I abbreviate a lot. I usually write MC does so and so, MC being my abbreviation for Main Character. But in my WWZ outline, I abbreviated BP. Brad Pitt.

The character of Gerry Lane is so insubstantial that when I was mentally reviewing the movie and going through its narrative, I wasnt thinking about Gerry Lane. I was thinking about Brad Pitt. Thats a bad sign. There are some actors I cant stop thinking of as the actors. Tom Cruise is one such actor. I cant remember the name of a single character hes played except for Lestat in Interview. And that doesnt necessarily have to be a bad thing. There are a ton of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies where its just Arnold Schwarzenegger fighting bad guys. Commando, Predator, Last Action Hero, True Lies. So its not necessarily a mark of death. But if you have a really great director who can work with the actor to develop the character, given a well-written and meaty role, then you do get to see the actor disappear and the character emerge. Jeff Bridges absolutely was the Dude. And in the True Grit remake, I saw a real character in his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn. Bryan Cranston became Walter Whitewhat Im saying is that I believe the fact that I referred to the person starring in this movie as Brad Pitt instead of Gerry Lane or Main Character is another sign of the weak direction of Marc Forster. This might be a criticism unique to me, but I wanted to put it out there anyway. So from this point on Im going to refer to Gerry as Brad Pitt, because I believe its a legitimate flaw that the movie failed to make me forget that I was supposed to see Brad Pitt play a character, rather than see Brad Pitt in a movie.

OK, so Brad Pitt and his family get airlifted to a fleet of warships. I guess theyre in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere. Thierry is there, and so is the Captain of the ship who appears to be in command of everything. Through exposition thoughts of a tactical map of the world, we learn that the number of human casualties of the zombie outbreak is in the billions. Thierry tells us that the President and Vice President and most of the Joint Chiefs are dead. There are some really well executed shots of Naval Officers manning the communication equipment talking to people around the world and denying requests for evac, saying things like Theres nowhere to evacuate you to, sir. Since this material doesnt feature Brad Pitt, I believe they were done by the 2nd Unit, and whoever shot these scenes was better at communicating emotionally with the audience than Marc Forster.

Brad Pitt and family (including Tommy, who continues to have no reaction whatsoever to the death of his parents) are given bunks on the warship, but Thierry and the Captain want Brad Pitt to go on a mission for them. See, we also get introduced to a character named Fassbech whos on board the warship. Hes a brilliant virologist, and he theorizes that the zombie outbreak is because of a virus. This is in keeping with earlier information we get over radio broadcast that Brad Pitt overhears; initial reports of the zombie say that its a rabies outbreak. So Fassbech believes that if he can figure out who Patient Zero (Patient Z?) was, they can vaccinate against it. Im skeptical of this.

Notice that Fassbech doesnt say they can cure zombies. Only vaccinate uninfected people against it. Thats how vaccines work. Maybe they mean to say cure, but if so they should have said so. At this point, it seems pointless to vaccinate, doesnt it? Billions are dead. The infection is only transmitted by bite, so even if they could prevent you from turning into a zombie once youre bitten, youre still in a situation where at least one zombie is actively trying to bite you to death. It seems to me like the government such as it is should be prioritizing establishing zombie proof zones and curing the infected, and thats why this scene doesnt work for me. See, were working on cures for lots of diseases that we dont know who Patient Zero was. And this mission turns out to be completely pointless. It never matters towards the ultimate resolution of the movie who Patient Zero was, nor what the source of the disease was, or even whether or not Fassbech was correct and it was a virus causing it.

So whats the point of sending Gerry out to investigate where they believe the virus to have originated, a US base in South Korea? Shut up, Rex. If the director wanted you to know what the point of going to Korea was he would have told you. Just dont think about it and eat more popcorn.

Brad Pitt doesnt want to go to Korea to look for PZ, because he doesnt want to leave his family. And since this is the first and only character moment WWZ shows us, I feel its worth stopping to call the Gerry Lane character such as he is a selfish asshole.

See, his wife and daughters are such non characters that its baffling what role they could serve on the ship. Real life naval vessels dont have room for dead weight, and in the fictional context of the immediate aftermath of an apocalypse, thats even more so the case. Were meant to think that the Captain is a bad guy when he threatens to send BPs family to a refugee camp if BP doesnt go to Korea, but what was BP expecting? That he and his family would be given a free ride and not have to contribute? Did he not just learn that billions of people have died? That the human race is under the very real threat of extinction if a solution to the zombie problem isnt found? See, you could have actually turned this into a character moment if BP initially wants to investigate and use his skills to help humanity survive. You could have had legitimate character tension if his wife was fearful of seeing her husband go out into a dangerous situation and leaving her alone to raise the now three children theyre responsible for. Yes, this version of events makes BPs wife look like a selfish bitch, but given that in the movie as presented she has no character at all, giving her a selfish and negative character trait would have been preferable to giving her none at all. And it could have enriched the Gerry Lane character if he was actually torn between his duty to the human race and his love for his family. But Marc Forster never saw an opportunity that he couldnt piss away, so as its presented the Captain has to threaten to kick BPs family off the boat to motivate him to go to Korea with Fassbech and a team of Navy SEALs. BP actually tells his wife that if he doesnt go, theyre going right back to Philly which made me go, Really? Really?

OK, so BP is given a satellite phone so he can stay in touch with his wife. Instead of, you know, Thierry or whoever the hell is running things. Fassbech and BP and the nameless SEALs get on board an AN12 cargo plane and fly to Korea. Im bothering to mention the make of the plane theyre on for a reason. Its a big plane and there are only 8 people on board including the pilot, leaving a lot of empty space. I initially thought that Whoevers in Charge (abbreviated WIC for the remainder of my review) thought that the soldiers on the base survived and was sending the plane in order to bring them home, that they were abandoning the base in Korea and had a more useful place to deploy these soldiers. That doesnt happen, meaning that the decision to use this particular cargo transport plane utterly baffling.

Fassbech is given a brief character moment when he talks about Mother Nature as a serial killer that leaves clues behind, and how she can design an organism with a seeming strength that turns out to be a weakness. While this is all but screaming FORESHADOWING at the audience, I actually dont mind this. Fassbech is a virologist that has a view that personifies the complex evolutionary and biological processes that lead to the emergence of diseases. I kind of like the little character insight.

The crew arrives at the base on Korea, and its dark. No exterior lights are on, and the plane lands in a rainstorm. Heres where I have to ask what BP does. Hes a UN investigator. But what does that mean? At first I thought he was art investigative reporter, part administrator, who goes in and investigates diplomatic and humanitarian incidents for the UN. But the movie treats it like a combat reporter embedded with a troupe of soldiers, someone whose training is in objectively observing and reporting details in chaotic and combative situations. But one thing I know is that when a journalist is embedded with soldiers, they are not given a gun to carry. On a battlefield, an armed man is a legitimate target, but someone whos unarmed is more likely to survive if the enemy sees that theyre unarmed. But Rex, zombies dont take prisoners. True, but the other part of that is basic gun safety. You dont let someone who doesnt know how to shoot have a weapon, theyre more likely to hurt you or themselves than they are the enemy. And Ill also point out that its Brad Pitt, not a Navy SEAL that tells Fassbech not to walk with his finger on the trigger of his pistol. So either UN Investigators in this setting are small arms proficient, or its another example of a growing trend well see in this movie, no one but Brad Pitt is allowed to do anything.

A common theme in this movie is that no one has any sense of agency besides Brad Pitt. Im going to point it out every time it comes up, but I think this moment, when the investigator tells Fassbech how to walk with his gun in a safe manner instead of one of the trained spec ops people.

I do want to point out that the visuals of the airfield after the plane lands are very well done. The pilot said going in that the runway lights were off, the base was dark, and it was raining. So when you see a visual like this:

[center][img]http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/1a/2b/1a2b58873e2dbad83ae257cb593d30fe.jpg?itok=n6tpxnmw[/img][/center]

It works and provides a very creepy and memorable image. And its a legitimately scary moment when that first zombie comes out of the darkness. Not so much because any individual zombie is scary by itself, but because you have no idea how many more of them are unseen behind that one. Is it smarter to fight or flight? That kind of tension and uncertainty is a good thing to build if you want to engage the audience. And it lasts for mere seconds here.

So Fassbech freaks out and runs away the second zombies show up. And he trips and falls on the ramp to the cargo plane, and in so doing the gun discharges and puts a bullet through his head. First of all, things happen so fast that I missed the fact that it was a gunshot that killed him on my first viewing. So when Pitt later says hes dead, I thought he had broken his neck somehow on the ramp. And I thought it was a lazy and hilarious way to write him out of the story. The accidental gunshot through the face is only slightly less lazy and even more hilarious. So I tend to find that nothing releases tension in an action scene more than the comedy of a character we dont know killing himself in an idiotic way.

Then the soldiers from the base show up and shoot at the zombies, and all of a sudden that beautiful concealing darkness I just commented on is gone, and theres total visibility:

[center][img]http://s1.postimg.org/ue8p1k2fy/WWZ5.jpg[/img][/center]

So are you trying to create a tense atmosphere here or not, Marc Forster? Relax, Rex. If the director thought that consistent lighting in a scene was important hed not have inexplicably changed the visual quality of this shot. Its not because he was lazy like he was with that day-becoming-night thing back at the pharmacy. Just stop thinking about it and eat some more popcorn.

So the soldiers at the base are led by a Captain, and he has a full beard, as do a number of men under his command. This is a mistake. The US Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps have policies that prohibit beards on the basis of hygiene, the necessity of a good seal for chemical weapon protective masks, and the official position that uniform personal appearance and grooming contribute to discipline and a sense of camaraderie. You could say that this standard has fallen because of the zombie apocalypse, but in this scene Pitt tells the Captain that the reason theyre there is because of an email that was sent from the base either 7 or 11 days ago (the script is confused and both figures are used). 11 days is not enough time to develop that thick growth the Captain displays. I suspect that in the different versions of the script, the visit to the base on Korea took place weeks or months after the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse. Either that, or Forster didnt know or care about military regulations on this thing. The latter is more forgivable, and I wouldnt even bother to bring up an issue so minor except for the fact that the stitches connecting the different drafts of the script are all over the place.

Brad Pitt learns that the first infected was a patient treated by a base doctor, who transmitted the virus to the doctor when he was examining him. I have to be honest, the Captains narration is really confusing, but what I think happened is that the patient and the doctor bit and infected everyone in the bases infirmary except for one soldier in particular, referred to as a dirty bastard. The dirty bastard was specifically ignored by the zombies, in fact.

Remember, Brad Pitt is one of the best investigators the UN has ever had, and his entire purpose in Korea is to investigate the source of the zombie outbreak in hopes of coming up with a cure, so when he learns that, for some reason, the zombies ignored a human being in their midst, he immediately

Asks about the infection time. Yes, he completely ignores the fact that the zombies ignored a human being instead of biting him. Because hes the best! He learns that when the outbreak first happened, the infection took between 5 to 10 minutes to convert a person into a zombie. This is told to him several times.

So then theres a scene with a CIA agent whos in the stockade on this base for selling arms to the North Koreans. This is the first scene thats majorly different in the theatrical release versus the unrated release. Im going to talk about it more later, but its important to know that hes toothless, talks about how North Korea pulled all the teeth from its citizens in order to prevent the spread of the zombie virus, and that Israel knew the zombies were coming and fortified Jerusalem. His entire purpose for being in the movie is to tell Brad Pit where he needs to go next, but the director doesnt seem interested in answering a basic question of logistics: how long has he been in the stockade? If it was longer than 7 or 11 days, then how does he know how North Korea handled the zombie outbreak? How does he know what Israel did in Jerusalem to protect the city? Why was he still in the stockade instead of being shipped to a CIA black site or a US prison to be tried for treason?

Just dont think about it, Rex, and eat some more popcorn.

Brad Pitt tells the soldiers that hes going to Israel, and offers them the chance to come with him. They decline, saying better the devil you know. And the Captain or WIC back at the flotilla doesnt have any instructions for these soldiers? Remember, I thought the group came in that huge cargo plane to bring back any surviving soldiers or biological samples or whatever. But no, apparently WIC doesnt care about these soldiers coming back, so they can stay or whatever. Remember how I said that no one but Brad Pitt had a sense of agency? Well, the soldiers were just hanging around doing nothing until Brad Pitt got there, and now that theyve helped him get to the next set piece they have no further purpose, desire, motivation, or anything. Theyre out of Brad Pitts life, and have no further purpose to the story, so theyre just going to hang out at the base and do nothing.

So since there are zombies on the base, theyre going to have to refuel the cargo plane. They figure its going to be all right just so long as they dont make any noise. Theres a very nice little moment when the Captain reminds his men that head shots are needed to put the zombies down, but if they dont have the shot, the spine is divine and the knee caps are fine. I really like that line, and its something that I can believe soldiers would come up with as sort of a little morale building chant. OK so they go outside to refuel the plane, but then Brad Pitts wife calls him on his satellite phone and attract the zombie hordes and Jesus Fucking Christ this is a stupid way to trigger a zombie attack. You know, I turned my phone off when I was in the movie theater and the voice before the previews told me to be considerate of the other theater-goers, Brad Pitt should have the same courtesy.

So the situation gets fucked up, and the plane only manages to get 45 seconds worth of fuel. I dont even care about whether or not the base has power and how theyre managing to get electricity to the fuel pumps, what I want to point out is that on the descent into the airfield the pilot said that they were flying on fumes. It normally takes between 30 to 45 minutes to fuel a cargo plane at a military airfieldmy point is that on the fuel they put in is nowhere near enough to get them any sort of distance. I didnt comment on it before, but the reason I mentioned that the model of the plane they were using was an AN 12 is because those have an operational range of about 5500 6000 kilometers before they need to be refueled. The flight from the Atlantic Ocean to Korea should have necessitated between two or three refuelings, and Im fine with not showing that. Lets just assume that there are fleet convoys with aircraft carriers that serviced them when they flew in. My point is that theyre now flying to Israel over continental Asia, when Brad Pitt later contacts Thierry, Thierry has no idea where Brad Pitt is or why hes gone there. So whos arranged for their refueling? What did they tell the people on the naval convoy when they put in for fresh fuel? If there was a naval detachment close enough to the base in Korea that they could make it there on 45 seconds worth of fuel, why didnt they investigate the base in Korea before Brad Pitt got there? Because No one but Brad Pitt has agency in this story, thats why. Either that, or Forster didnt know or didnt care about whether or not his character could escape and make it to Jerusalem on an empty tank.

Also, the U.S. Navy does not operate the AN 12 cargo plane.

Somewhere in the distance over the flight, they see a mushroom cloud detonate. Who nuked whom? Why? I am amazed, just amazed that in a story about zombies and near human extinction, the deployment of a nuclear weapon in an act of war isnt even worth thinking about after it happens.

OK, so were going to arrive in Israel. Were running long again, and I guess Ill have to talk about the third act of the movie in part three. There are only a few issues I have with the scenes in Israel but theyre also fairly substantial ones.

First of all, this is the exterior of Jerusalem:

[center][img]http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/World-War-Z-Israel-540x286.png[/img][/center]

Those tunnel things are ways for humans to get into Jerusalem through the zombie hordes outside the walls. But notice how the tunnels extend out of the frame of the shot so you cant see what the access points look like. If there are so many zombies, how do they get the people into the tunnels? What does the entrance point look like and how do they keep zombies out? Later well see that busses full of people are coming in through the gates, but theres no way in that shot that a bus could get through the zombie horde, clear a space in front of them, and get into the walls without letting zombies into the city.

Relax, Rex, so the films visual logic makes its premise impossible. Stop thinking about it, brain, youre just going to hurt yourself. Just eat more popcorn.

Brad Pitt learns that the Israelis believed the zombie outbreak happened in India when their intelligence reports that Indian soldiers were fighting against Rakshasas (which the character tells Pitt is the Hindu word for zombie. No it fucking isnt). So Brad Pitt in his pointless quest to find the origin of the zombie outbreak, says he needs to go to India. The scientist tells him that India is gone, its a black hole. But heres a part of the trailer that aired less than two months before the film was released:

Remember how I said that the different drafts of the script were inexpertly stitched together? Heres a great example. This clip is from a preview about a month before the movie was released:

[center]http://coub.com/view/1pm7b5di[/center]

In the original version of the movie, Brad Pitt was going to go to Russia and participate in this big, apocalyptic, climactic battle that turned the tide of the zombie war. But the studio execs didnt like that version, so they rewrote it and changed the third act of the movie to occur in Wales instead. For some reason, that necessitated them changing that line of dialogue; instead of Russia being a black hole, the dialogue is very badly overdubbed and the word Russia is replaced with India. Im utterly baffled as to why this is. Pitt goes to neither Russia nor India after leaving Israel, so what does it matter which nation is a black hole in this line of dialogue? Its a pointless change that detracts from the overall film quality because its so badly done.

So a Palestinian lady takes a microphone and begins to sing a happy song because shes glad to be in Jerusalem or whatever. And the zombies are attracted to the sound of the singing and create a zombie pile. You probably saw it:

[center][img]http://thewolfmancometh.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/world-war-z-zombie-pile-wall-climb.jpg[/img][/center]

Heres where I need to talk about another reason WWZ failed for me. See, Im just not that scared of the zombies. The idea of zombies is kind of a freaky one; undead bodies driven by a desire for human flesh, but a scary idea still needs a good execution to create a feeling of fear and unease in the audience. I cant put my finger on exactly why the zombies in WWZ arent scary, but part of it comes down to the aforementioned character problems. You can create fear and tension in the audience by threatening beloved characters. Well, none of those here. The other way is to make the threat believable on its own. And when the zombies do physics defying shit like that, it shatters my disbelief and if I cant believe in it, it doesnt scare me. So the zombies werent frightening, so I guess WWZ fails as a horror movie.

So the zombies climb zombie pyramids and jump off the wall and fall hundreds of feet to the hard ground below, and are apparently able to get right up and chase after people like they were make of Unbreakable-um instead of skin and bones. But you can fight the zombies with small arms or beat them to death with shovels and bats and axes. I guess the zombies are as tough as they need to be for the purposes of any given scene. Just dont think about it and eat more popcorn, Rex.

Also, the zombies were apparently fine with busses puling into the city, helicopters flying overhead, Brad Pitts airplane landing, jeeps driving around the city, and all the associated noises of millions of people in a small space, but its the woman singing that makes them attack? Must resist urge to make joke at the expense of her singing voice.

In the Jerusalem scene, Brad Pitt is assigned an Israeli security detail, and the pilot and Navy SEALs just sort of fuck off and are never seen again. One soldier from the Israeli army survives and tags along with him to Wales; a woman named Segen. I dont know why, but I love this character. Maybe its because Ive developed Stockholm Syndrome from the movie at this point, and I want to latch onto anything that even hints at character, or maybe this is a remnant of an earlier, better script, but the character not only seems real to me, but is kind of awesome too.

OK, so the zombies attack the city, Jerusalem falls, and theres a running gun battle as Brad Pitt and Segen try to get to the airport to survive. As hes running, Brad Pitt sees this:

[center]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRQts8uPEVo#t=246[/center]

The zombies run past this kid. Theres also an old man that the zombies ignore. This part of the review is also running long, but I figured out where the movie was going when I saw this part of the movie. Brad Pitt isnt going to figure it out until he gets on board the airplane, and Ill talk about it then, but I wanted to point this out: the zombies decide not to bite this one particular kid. Its not that they just ignore him, they actively change the way theyre moving so that they run around him. This makes no sense. They arent going to infect him for whatever reason. But why would they go to the effort of moving around him? They hurl themselves against obstacles in their path all the time in order to get to humans they bite. Remember how I said they beat their heads into glass to break it? There is no reason for the zombies to avoid trampling this kid to death other than because Forster wanted to Pitt to see them ignore the boy and avoid him actively, even though they dont give a fuck about whats in their way.

So in the battle Segen gets bitten on the finger by a zombie and Brad Pitt cuts her hand off before the ten second countdown. This is the second major difference between the theatrical version and the unrated version. See, when the film was altered with the CIA dude, it was because he was pulling out all of his teeth and arranging them on the tray before him in a gruesome and bloody display. Here, when Pitt amputates Segens hand, theres blood spray as you would expect for a sudden and violent amputation. But not in the theatrical version.

See, I havent said this before, but the theatrical version of WWZ was rated PG-13.

[center][img]http://www.troll.me/images/jackie-chan-whut/what-the-fuck-is-this.jpg[/img][/center]

Seriously? Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Dawn of the Dead. 28 Days Later. Shaun of the Dead. Night of the Living Dead. Zombieland. [Rec]. Do you know what these movies have in common, besides being really good zombie movies? Theyre all rated FUCKING R. Marc Forster, you fucking hack. You toned down the blood and gore on this epic adaptation of a great and scary and horrific novel so you could sell more tickets to kids. You fucking commercial sell out hack. I hate this almost more than anything else about this movie. PG-FUCKING-13.

I literally cannot express how pissed off I am about this. Movies dont have to be rated R to be good. But if you feel the need to present a sanitized version of violence, at least do it because you have an artistic vision and you want the violence and fighting to be more symbolic of character. Wuxia does not resemble actual swordfighting. And Im fine with that. Tarantino goes the opposite direction and presents violence thats comically over the top with way MORE blood than in real life. And Im fine with that because those depictions of violence are thematically appropriate to the works in which they appear. But WWZ wants to be taken seriously as the real world, with real zombies, and gives us this consequence free violence in which you can amputate a womans hand and not get a single drop of blood. FUCK.

FUCK!

I am so close to being done with this part of the review and I really need to stop writing about it. So Pitt and Segen find a plane from Belarus just now landing in the Jerusalem airport and get on with an absolutely horrible looking CG ladder descending from the cockpit. The plane takes off, and Brad Pitt is about to figure out where theyre going next.

I had more complaints about the first act of the movie, more scenes where I stopped and watched things frame by frame to figure out what was going on. Generally speaking, things improved when Pitt ditched his useless family, in the sense that the films visual sequences were easier to follow, I didnt have to witness the abomination of the child actors. But the flaws were compounding the more of them that were presented, and the bloodless violence was annoying as all get out. There were a few touches I liked, mostly character moments from people other than Brad Pitt, but the movie is just shit.

OK, wow. This review is now 8400 words long and Im only two thirds through the actual movie itself, and I still want to reflect on the movie as a whole. Is this even properly a review anymore, or is it more of an analysis of why its a shitty work?

And one more question; SP was nice enough to say that he enjoyed reading this, but is anyone else enjoying seeing me suffer through the analysis of the movie? Anyone else think my opinion and insight is particularly informative?

Part 3

OK, so Brad Pitt and Segen manage to get to a Belarus Airlines jet that had just landed at the Jerusalem airport (an airport thats been closed since 2001 in the real world) and a very bad and fake CGI ladder descends from the cockpit and lets them on board the plane. This is important; at no time does the plane taxi to the terminal, and at no point is a door open on the craft.

So the pilots are all like, Who the fuck are you guys, but there are zombies, yo, so they gotta take off without getting answers. The plane takes off, and we see Jerusalem fall. Pitt takes Segen into first class and proceeds to do some battlefield sanitation of her stump with vodka bottles, and I really like how Segen handles it. I would be a wreck if I lost a hand and had straight vodka poured on it, but shes really a tough woman and I like how she acts. The one flaw I have with her performance is that Pitt gives her a couple little bottles of the vodka and she just kind of sips at it. You just lost a hand, woman, and saw Jerusalem fall. Down that shit.

Segen asks Pitt how he knew that she wouldnt turn into a zombie, and Pitt says that he knew. Because of the counting toy bunny, you see. But heres another example of where different drafts of the script were poorly meshed together without serious revising. Didnt everyone he encountered in Korea tell him that there was a 10 minute transformation time? Yes, he saw people in Philadelphia change in 10 seconds, but why should he assume that is how the virus works now? You want to say the virus mutated some time between the initial outbreak and when Pitt saw it in Philadelphia. Fine, whatever. But why would that mean that people who are already infected with the virus have the mutated strain take over? Wouldnt some of the zombies be walking around with the 10 second strain, and some with the 10 minute strain? I actually thought they were about to do something halfway clever and show that Pitt didnt know as much about the virus as he thought he did, and have Segen turn into zombie after 10 minutes, but no. Pitt was right, all zombies now apparently infect you with the 10 second strain.

Segen says that without her hand, shes a liability. And that makes the eureka moment occur in Pitt, and he flashes back to Fassbech saying that mother nature hides weaknesses as strength, the dirty bastard in Korea smiling when he says how the zombies didnt attack him, and the old man and the boy in Jerusalem that the zombies ignored. And heres where I guess we should talk about the big flaw in the movies premise.

Pitt theorizes that the zombie virus is only going to spread itself to healthy hosts, and that they will ignore people with terminal illnesses. It turns out that hes right, but lets go back and think about it. In Philadelphia this was foreshadowed by the zombies running right past a homeless man in the street drinking booze out of a paper bag. I didnt mention it because this was foreshadowing done right, instead of the huge neon signs every other instance got. But we have four cases of the zombies ignoring someone; the old homeless man with the booze, the dirty bastard soldier, the old man and the skinny boy in Jerusalem. Lets theorize that the old homeless man had some sort of liver damage or disease. Dirty bastard is what soldiers call someone who sleeps with local prostitutes overseas, so he probably has an STD. Given that he was limping, hepatitis seems a likely prospect since it can cause joint and muscle pain. The old man in Jerusalem was confused more than afraid, even with the zombies all around him, so he probably had dementia or Alzheimers or something. The boy was bald and very skinny, so lets assume that he had been receiving radiation treatment for some kind of cancer.

Renal disease, a viral infection, a brain degeneration disease, and cancer. These are four distinct diseases with separate pathologies, progressions, symptoms, and health outcomes. But the zombies somehow universally recognize all these different syndromes that would make the person a bad host for the zombie virus and ignore them or actively avoid them in the case of the boy. Im not even arguing that this is a bad premise. Lets just say that theres a magical zombie virus that gives the zombies a magic power to detect unhealthy hosts with any lethal disease. Whatever. But heres where the movies premise contradicts the logic of the story.

There are 5 million people in the United States with hepatitis B or hepatitis C. Half a million people in the US die of cancer every year. 5 million people have Alzheimers, thousands with bacterial meningitis, there are 1.5 million people with HIV, [b]30 million[/b] with liver disease, and on and on and on and on. Why is it only now that Brad Pitt is making the connection between people the zombies bite and the people that they dont bite? Why arent calls coming into the ship and someone figuring out and telling WIC that zombies seem to be ignoring people with terminal illnesses. Hey, Im a cancer doctor, and when the zombies attacked my hospital, they tore through the emergency room and critical care wing, but they left the oncology ward alone. Hey, zombies have killed everyone, except for the people in my HIV support group. Punishment from God, fundamentalist Christians? Whos God punishing now?

Worldwide, disease prevalence should have stopped the zombie infection or at least significantly stopped it. Cholera and malaria, HIV and AIDS, but why stop there? How many people have the common cold right now? Its not normally a fatal virus, but thats only because of the immune system. Will zombies bite someone who has a common cold or flu? Thousands of people die from the flu every year, after all. Is that a fatal disease?

So basically, the premise behind this virus means that there shouldnt have been a movie at all. If anyone in the movie besides Brad Pitt had a sense of agency, they would have figured this out and it wouldnt have come as a mid-movie revelation. But Brad Pitt is the one to figure it out, and while the timing is exactly right for this sort of story structure, the actual details make no sense. He calls his wife on the satellite phone and has her get Thierry, and again I have to wonder why he cant contact Thierry directly. What if Thierry had been off the ship doing some bureaucratic stuff when Pitt called. What if his wife was on the toilet. Would he have to awkwardly wait for her to finish and go get him? Brad Pitt says he needs to find a place where they do germ research, and Thierry says that theres a W.H.O. facility in Wales thats still operational. Pitt hands his phone with Thierry on the other end to the pilots. They close the door and when they open it again, the pilot tells Thierry that the battery on the phone is dead, but that theyre going to Wales. Isnt it lucky that the Belarusian pilot spoke English? What did Thierry say to the pilots to convince them to go to Wales?

Rex, if knowing what one character said to another was important, the director would have shown the conversation. Just dont think about it and eat some more popcorn.

So the pilot goes on the intercom and tells the passengers that theyre going to Wales, and will land in Cardiff airport. Heres another example of inconsistencies with the length of time since the zombie outbreak, which I blame on multiple and sloppy rewrites. The people on this plane act like the outbreak hasnt even happened. They have normal carry on luggage, they seem more confused about whats going on than scared, and they seem like a normal group of people on an airplane than a lucky group of survivors who managed to get on a plane before Belarus or wherever fell to the zombies. I would have thought that air traffic was suspended once, you know, billions of people started dying, but they apparently had no problem crewing this plane. The flight attendants are even in uniform, for Gods sake, and carry on with serving drinks and meals like nothing unusual is going on.

Note to self: Belarus Airlines is very strict about attendance. You cant even call out of work in a zombie apocalypse.

Ive made my point that the characters will get from scene to scene without regards for logic or logistics, and I dont know what kind of airplane theyre on. Lets just assume that they had enough fuel when they landed to make it from Jerusalem to Cardiff, but one thing we cant ignore is that flight time between Israel and the United Kingdom is about 6 hours. In one shot, theyve clearly just left Israel, and after the cut, the pilot says that theyve been given permission to land and are starting their descent. There is no transition shot to signify the passage of time. Brad Pitt falls asleep, I guess, and thatll have to do, but even an exterior shot or some text across the screen would have been useful. I felt like we were thrown violently into the next scene as soon as it was clear where Brad Pitt had to go next.

So the flight attendant goes to use the little elevator thing to put the drinks cart away and send it back to the galley, and this happens:

[center]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pQpShTpLCQ[/center]

Remember how earlier I said that at no point after the plane landed in Israel did a door open except for the ladder Pitt and Segen used to climb into the cockpit? So how did the zombie get on board the plane.

Its a simple question. How did the zombie get on board the plane?

Through the wheel well of the landing gear? No. No it fucking did not. The wheel wells of jet planes are not connected to the galley, the luggage storage, or any other part of the airplane where humans or animals could survive. The wheel wells are unpressurized and unheated. Stowaways in aircraft wheel wells face numerous health risks, many of which are fatal: being mangled when undercarriage retracts, hypothermia, hypoxia, frostbite, and acidosis. The landing gear compartment is not equipped with heating, pressure or oxygen, which are vital for survival at a high altitude. Ive not compared the movie to the book, but here I feel I need to. Theres a chapter featuring a survivor who was in some place above the arctic circle. I want to say Alaska, but whatever. The point is that once winter set in, the zombies sort of hibernated, and the survivors hunted them down and killed as many as they could, not knowing whether or not they would die in the cold. It turns out that they werent dead when they thawed, but the frozen ice crystals had severely damaged their bodies and they were very easily defeated and could barely move after spring. Humanity was actually safer in places with severe weather because the zombie bodies werent adapted to the cold.

Even if we grant that the zombie got aboard through the wheel well, and broke its way through the compartments to arrive in the pantry elevator at that moment, six hours later, the cabin of the plane should have lost pressure and the pilots should have noticed with some alarm in the cockpit. Furthermore, why did the zombie wait six hours before jumping out to bite the flight attendant? Remember, these zombies will beat their heads against glass windows in order to get to their prey. If the zombie heard the noises of humans being humans aboard a pane, why wasnt it beating at the pantry door to get at the humans? Another zombie seemed to have studied jump scares and plot convenience in life before being bitten, and wanted to come out when it was dramatically appropriate and give the audience a scare.

Relax, Rex. If the director had thought it was important for you to know how the zombie got on board, he would have shown you. Just eat some more popcorn.

Brad Pitts protagonist sense goes off, and he moves to the back of the plane. As he gets closer to the partition between first class and economy, he hears screams grow louder as the zombie infection spreads. Remember, no one but Brad Pitt has any agency. So although there are people sitting closer to economy than he was, they didnt hear anything despite the fact that the only thing separating first class from economy was a curtain. Nor did anyone in economy run forward when they realized there were fucking zombies on the plane.

Note to self: Belarus Airlines is very strict about ticketing areas. If you dont have a first class ticket, you cant go to that part of the plane, even if there are fucking zombies.

Brad Pitt has some people build a luggage wall, because apparently these zombies arent strong enough to break a Samsonite barrier, but one asshole drops a suitcase and the zombies turn around and surge into first class. You had one job, asshole.

Segen is awesome and shoots the zombies with her sidearm, despite being one handed and probably unbelievably drunk, and every shot drops a zombie. But then Brad Pitt takes a grenade from her belt and lobs it at the horde and blows open a hole in the side of the plane, making it a moot point whether Segen had fired her gun or not and invalidating her character action. Its disaster movie physics that the plane isnt shredded apart instantly at that moment, but whatever. The zombies are pulled out, Pitt and Segen get into seats and buckle themselves in (I presume Pitt helped Segen fasten her belt before doing his own). The pilots die in the crash, and everyone dies except for Segen and Pitt.

Before I go on, I want to stop and consider how the zombie virus spread. Lets stay it started in India or Russia or Korea or whatever, and zombies went forth biting and infecting people. How did the virus get off the Eurasian continent? Thierry has a line about how planes were the perfect vehicle for transmitting the infection, but no they are fucking not. We just saw what happened when one zombie got onboard a plane; everyone was infected in minutes from the moment it first attacked. Maybe the doors were reinforced enough that the zombies couldnt break them down, but the pilots still realize that there are a shit ton of people biting and killing each other, and given that there are obvious physical symptoms of zombiedom, can report that theres a scary bad infection on board the plane, which would result in both an armed response when the plane lands and SWAT is sent in, but the plane would be directed to an isolated area for quarantine. Not to mention that if this happened on more than one plane simultaneously, dont you think all air traffic would be grounded, like on 9/11? Furthermore, if millions and billions of people in Asia and Europe were infected, wouldnt the news reports Pitt watched on TV in the opening scenes be filled with nothing but BILLIONS DEAD; RUSSIA FALLEN, INDIA, CHINA QUARANTIED instead of vague reports about rabies and the weekend weather forecast? How do people living on the opposite side of the world not know about the biggest thing to happen in the history of the modern age? I cant walk out my front door without learning that [INSERT CURRENT EVENTS CELEBRITY GOSSIP JOKE HERE] but somehow Pitt (the best UN investigator ever, mind) is unaware of zombies until a zombie tries to zombie him?

See, movies like Night of the Living Dead dont explain how the zombie outbreak happens. Some say it happens everywhere at once with a weird space radiation thing causing all dead bodies everywhere to rise with a hunger for human flesh. That explains how the zombies could appear in rural Pennsylvania and Los Angeles and Ethiopia all at the same time. But when its a viral infection, those have to spread. 28 Days Later had viral rage zombies, but they managed to contain the infection to the British Isles and the big struggle in 28 Weeks Later was preventing the zombies from making it to continental Europe. WWZ simultaneously suggests that there was a Patient Zero, but it also happened everywhere at once. You cant have it both ways, WWZ. Either it happens everywhere at once, or spreads like a virus normally spreads.

Pitt comes to, and hes got a piece of shrapnel inside him, and in a rare instance of a movie showing a correct first aid procedure, he [u]doesnt[/u] pull out the hunk of metal in his torso. He and Segen walk through a Welsh village, and its remarkably untouched. There are no zombies in the street, no destruction. No people, either, but we do see someone move aside a curtain and get a POV shot inside a building watching Pitt and Segen walk down the street. I was very confused by this shot. Are there zombies in Wales or not? If so, why dont Pitt and Segen get attacked as they walk wounded through the village? If not, why dont people come out of their houses and help them?

They make it to the WHO facility, where Pitt collapses. Awfully fucking convenient that the zombie waited until the plane could be crashed within walking distance by two wounded people to the destination they needed to get to.

When Thierry receives word that the plane Pitt was on crashed, WIC decides that Pitts family needs to go to a refugee camp. I thought they were going to be sent back to Philly. A refugee camp actually sounds like a good place; food and shelter and protection. Maybe not as secure as the ship, but pretty much everyone who isnt needed aboard the ship should have been sent there as soon as they were evacced. Why does Pitt not want his family to go to a refugee camp again? Later, hell have some line like, Ive seen what happens in those places, but nothing actually does happen. In the last scene of the movie, we see the Nova Scotia camp, and it looks clean and fortified and pretty pleasant. I would definitely recommend the Nova Scotia Freedom Zone camp if youre ever in a zombie outbreak and need refuge.

So Pitts unconscious for 48 hours, and Ill give the movie that a WHO facility has a doctor who can remove the shrapnel and give Segen and Pitt medical attention. When Pitt wakes up, Peter Capaldi (aka the newest Doctor Who) is sitting there staring at him. Remember how no one but Pitt has a sense of agency? Peter Capaldi and another doctor begin interrogating Pitt about where he came from and why hes there. They say something like, You can imagine how this looks to us. Huh? How DOES this look to you? Do you think that Pitt is an undercover zombie? Do you think Pitt is working for the zombies? Do you think Pitt wants to trade you to the zombies in exchange for leniency? Why are you suddenly acting like its possible that Pitt is some kind of enemy agent or something.

Oh, and why didnt you fucking ask Segen? Shes still in uniform, and can identify herself as a soldier in the Israeli Army. I was part of this guys security detail. Hes a UN Investigator. But no one but Pitt has agency, remember. So the doctors were literally sitting there waiting for him to wake up so they could ask him who he was and what hes doing there, and Segen was off being awesome on her own somewhere.

Pitt says that he has a phone, and either the doctors at the WHO (maybe even Doctor Who who works for WHO as a doctorhee hee) charged the phone or Pitt charged it on the airplane. What kind of charging cable do Irdium Satellite phones need, anyway? But whatever, the point is that when Pitt asks for it, its charged despite the captain of the plane saying it was dead. And Pitt calls his wife, and is surprised when Thierry answers. Thierry tells him what happened to his family, but I have to stop here.

Did Thierry really not call Pitts phone, despite hoping that he had survived the crash? Did he call it and not get an answer? Did the phone ring and the Doctor not answer it? Despite being curious and suspicious of Pitt and Segen, did they not go through his phone and call the number Pitt programmed into it? Why did it take two days for Thierry to talk to the Doctor? Because no one but Pitt has agency, remember.

So Thierry vouches for Pitt, and theres an absolutely stupid exchange between Pitt and one of the WHO doctors (not the Doctor) about how Pitt goes into the You cant possibly know how I feel clich. But Pitt explains his theory, and says that he needs a virus thats fatal but treatable in order to test his theory that the zombies ignore the terminally ill. If they can infect people with such a virus, it would make them invisible to the zombies. Fine, whatever. But in the background of this scene, theres a zombie in some sort of glass enclosure:

[img]http://i.ytimg.com/vi/o-cThWFxf9k/maxresdefault.jpg[/img]

Remember how the zombies in Philadelphia would beat glass windows their heads until they broke? That zombie is just chilling there. Why isnt she attacking the glass to get to the humans in the lab? You could say that the glass is reinforced and wouldnt break, but these zombies have no self-preservation instinct and no apparent sense of pain, remember. Theyll jump off of buildings or hundred foot walls to get to people, so why isnt this zombie attacking the glass? Yes, she gently taps her head against the glass, but that wouldnt have broken even if it had been normal glass and not reinforced airproof disease research lab security glass.

So the WHO doctors tell Pitt that they have the viruses he needs, but that theyre in B wing. There was an infection in B wing, and not its been sealed off and zombies roam the halls. So I guess there are zombies in Wales, but while B wing may have been locked down, the zombies didnt care enough about finding more humans to infect as to actually leave the building and go roaming the streets. Im also not entirely clear how the doctor who was studying the samples got infected. Theres no video of these part of the scene online that I could find, but heres a still image:

[center][img]http://s3.postimg.org/dmwrcguk3/WWZ6.png[/img][/center]

Hes looking through a microscope at Petri dishes. In just a second, hes going to jerk his hand back like hes pricked his finger on a needle, start to convulse, and then go zombie and infect everyone in B wing.

First of all, I thought only a bite could transmit the zombie virus. Pitt had zombie blood in his mouth and on his face and there are blood-permeable membranes in the nose and sinuses and the mouth if you have open sores. Why did the doctor get infected? Second, HOW did the doctor get infected? Did he cut himself on a Petri dish? You had one job, man. Handling biological samples safely IS your job, man. So you mean to tell me that this WHO doctor is LESS cautious than he would be normally when dealing with a new and scary strain of disease they havent seen before? Why isnt he in a [url=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OJopoqsIwdU/UdsJXk1O3DI/AAAAAAAAAfs/M7xBi5W27CY/s1600/Unknown3.jpg]hazmat suit[/url] or handling the samples through thick gloves in an [url=http://www.laboratory-supply.net/gloveboxes/images/Cleatech_Glove_Box_2100%20Series.JPG]isolation pod[/url] or something? Hes wearing gloves, but apparently managed to cut them and his skin from a fucking Petri dish. This is Fassbech shooting himself in the head all over again. This is just amazingly shit writing. There are about 80 zombies in B wing, where the samples Pitt needs are stored.

Lets think about this for a second. In a movie divided into three acts, each act will have a climactic piece that accomplishes different things in a narrative. Typically, the biggest challenge is reserved for the third act, where the hero comes to the nadir of their journey and is at the furthest point from achieving their goals. In an action movie, that typically means that the action builds up to the biggest and most dramatic set pieces. There are notable exceptions, of course; a very good exception was the James Bond movie Skyfall, which opens with a roof motocycle train tunnel bridge chase sequence, and ends with three people fighting off bad guys with guns attacking a farmhouse, using nothing more than shotguns and bear traps. But generally, action builds in a movie and the third act climax is the biggest and most exciting part of an action movie.

What have we seen in WWZ? Act I was the downfall of Philadelphia and the rooftop escape in Newark. Act II was Korea and Jerusalem, with millions of zombies bringing down the city. Act III is about 80 zombies in a lap in Wales. The original version, remember, was supposed to be the battle of Russia, but instead were suddenly shifting genres and its survival horror instead of action horror. Its usually a bad thing when you dramatically change tones two thirds of the way through the movie. I gotta say, though, that the tension in Wales is better than in the rest of the movie, because were not going overboard with CGI zombies and the heroes have a goal other than get to the vehicle that will take them to the next scene, but its still bad for reasons well see in a moment.

Were given the rules for the tense stealth section as Pitt, Segen, and one of the lab doctors set out to sneak by the zombies and get to the virus storage locker. Zombies go lethargic and slow, but are attracted to noises. Try not to kill one, because that sets the rest off. I actually kind of like that the scientists actually have this useful information, because otherwise they were completely useless and waiting for Pitt to get there before doing anything, but Im still not clear on something. See the zombies are shuffling around, and one is walking into a wall repeatedly. Theres broken glass on the floor, and it makes noise when people walk across it. My question is this: how to the zombies tell the difference between noises the humans make and noises other zombies make? Why arent all the zombies close to the one that was walking into the wall? Why do the zombies all turn and look and react when one of the humans accidently kicks a soda can? Are they psychic zombies? Do they have a hive mind?

One thing I really wanted to highlight is Segens really last great character moment. One of the doctors distributes the weapons they have; a fire axe, a crowbar, and baseball bat. They also have a pistol, which Pitt refuses. We cant kill them, remember. Segen gets a grim look on her face and takes the gun and holsters it. Its never stated, but I got the impression that the doctor who offered it wasnt suggesting that they should kill the zombies with it, but it was for the people in case they were bitten. And Segen understood that even if Pitt was too stupid to get it. Thats just what I inferred from the scene, but I really liked it.

OK, so the trio stealths their way through B wing, when one of the WHO doctors hits his crowbar on something metal and makes a noise and attracts the zombies. Theres a chase scene, and Pitt is moving really well from someone who had a piece of metal in his intestines two days ago. Segen actually appears to be moving in pain and doesnt know what to do with her stump. Im just saying. But whatever, he does a heroic thing where he lures the zombies away and the other two run back to the secure area, leaving Pitt alone. He gets to the lab where the viruses are, but theyre secured behind a door locked with a numeric keypad. Everyone else is watching him on the security monitors, and Im fine with the facility having power. But heres the thing; just as Pitt is about to break down the door with the crowbar, the scientists in the camera room call him on the labs phone to give him the combination to the keypad.

Heres the thing: you mean that all three people who went into B wing didnt know the code before they set out? I know the plan was for them all to get there together, but wouldnt it have made sense to let everyone know the code and what vials to take just in case someone got zombied in the face? Second of alland Im not actually going to say its a plot hole because I didnt think of it until my third or fourth time going over thisbut if the zombies are attracted by noise, and the people in the control room can still use the internal speaker and phone system, wouldnt it have been cool to see them strategically calling phones and making noise over the intercom to lure the zombies out of the path of the human infiltration team? I think this wasnt in there because no one thought of it, but even if they had I dont think Forster would have gone with it. Because no one can have agency besides Brad Pitt, and having someone else distract the zombies by ringing phones would have given someone else something to do.

So they call and give him the code, and Brad Pitt punches it in and like a total genius leaves his crowbar propped up on the outside of the vault. And hes looking around for the right vials to take, and when he turns around he sees that theres one zombie outside the door, kind of looking at him like, hey there, guy. And now Brad Pitt is trapped with no weapons.

Before I talk about the resolution of the movie, I want to ask about how the zombies know whether or not theyre going to bite someone to infect them. It cant be visual; dirty bastard looks like a normal soldier dude, and homeless old guy in Philly looked like a homeless. The old guy in Jerusalem looked old, and the kid was bald and skinny, there are lots of bald and skinny kids in the world that dont have cancer, presumably. Is it smell? Do zombies detect sick pheromones or something? Look back up at that picture of the lady zombie who was looking at them like she wanted to eat them. She could only see them through the glass. I presume it was for biological containment, so it had its own air system. She cant be smelling them through that glass. How does she know whether or not she wants to eat them without begin able to smell their sick pheromones? Same thing with the chattering tooth clicking zombie outside the vault where Brad Pitt is trapped. Can he smell Pitt through the glass? Again, I would presume not, since this is for dangerous disease storage, but without being able to smell him, how can he tell by sight that Brad Pitt isnt HIV positive or whatever. What if a zombie lost his nose from the initial bite or had it blown off in an explosion? Would that zombie suddenly bite everyone, even the terminally ill? Or would that zombie bite no one?

Relax, Rex. If the director wanted youeat more popcorn.

OK, so the only way out is to test his theory that the zombies will ignore someone with a terminal disease. But, as the people in the control room tell the audience, the vials in the left cabinet are the ones he wants. If he uses the vials in the right cabinet, hes dead because apparently those are the incurable ones. First of all, great organizational system, guys. Shall we separate out based on viruses versus bacteria? Chronic or acute? No, lets go with curable versus not. I dont think thats how diseases are stored.

But this is the dramatic climax of the movie. Heres where Brad Pitt will find out if his theory is right or wrong and if the zombie will ignore him or not. And theres the added danger that Brad Pitt doesnt know that some of the vials in the room are for diseases they cant cure. And this moment utterly fails because its artificial.

First of all, why cant the scientists ring the phone? Wouldnt that distract the zombie long enough for Pitt to grab his crowbar or try to sneak past? Second of all, theyre watching him on camera. Theres even a closeup shot of the control panel, and it looks like they can move the camera side to side or up or down. There was an audio dub of a mechanical sound, and I thought that WAS them adjusting the camera. Cant they work out a system where Brad Pitt holds vials up to the camera lens, and they call him back on the phone or manipulate the camera to indicate whether or not thats the vial he wants to use. Theres actually a scene of Pitt writing on a notepad, and I thought he was going to work out that very same system. But no, he just writes out the generic TELL MY FAMILY I LOVE THEM and injects himself at random. So earlier I said that killing a character in an inappropriately comedic and stupid way was the best thing to remove tension from a scene. I was wrong. Having tension exist in a scene only because the characters are idiots who cant think of something so simple as to write out, IF THIS IS THE VIAL I WANT RING THE PHONE destroys tension even better. Because the tension is all artificial. And apparently, there was absolutely no discussion about what they wanted when they got there. The doctor didnt share the door code, and didnt say, You want to grab either the streptococcus virus or meningitis. Thats what well use to fool the zombies. Relax, Rex. Popcorn.

So Pitt survives, and I just love how the chattering zombie came in and was all like, Hey, where did you go. And Pitt strolls past him, and Im about to make my last point. Before he walks triumphantly past the zombie hordes, he stops to get a soda from a vending machine and drinks it down. Its a Pepsi. Now Im not one of those people that hates product placement, and I dont mind real life brands showing up in the background of movies, because Pepsi and Capital One and KFC all exist in the real world. But when you have the main character literally stop his walk towards rejoining his friends for the express purpose of enjoying a soda, then I argue that were not looking at a product placement anymore, but were actually taking a fucking commercial break. The person that did this spoof didnt need to do anything but add voiceover narration to turn it into a parody:

[center]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYl9rTxD4Gg[/center]

So Pitt uses his Pepsi money and reunites with his family, and baits a sequel in closing narration by saying that our war has just begun. THE END.