World War Z

Based off of the book, slightly but not really....or at all. This movie started gaining some steam once pics and story tidbits started to hit the net. However that is also when it started to have issues. The book was something quite fantastic, and something you don't see in most zombie tales. It dealt with the psychology of a zombie outbreak in every facet of life. It did not follow one person, but multiple groups of people from all over the world, so as to give a complete view of the "World War" against the zombies. The movie is about Brad Pitt trying to figure out a way to stop the virus, and follows him around the world in doing so. Because it deviated so far, and seemed to leave out the entire point of the book, I had no interest in seeing this film. The question is, was I wrong? 

The story is simple, viral outbreak and zombies a plenty. Brad Pitt is a family man who used to work for the government in hot zones in hostile territories. They never really say just what he did, but it made him a very needed commodity in the current situation. He comes out of retirement in order to give his family a safe place to stay, and starts looking for a cure or way to stop the outbreak.

The zombies were rather unique in this movie. They reminded me of the aliens in Star Ship Troopers more then anything else. They ran straight on, and seemed to have some sort of hive mind intelligence. They even steal a scene pretty much straight out of that movie which probably helped a lot with that association. They are not your normal slow Z's though. They appeared faster when they turn, think 28 days later but stepped up a notch.

At its core, it really is a action movie instead of a drama or mystery. There is the overall story point of how to stop the Z's. However it takes the backseat to the action seemingly ever few minutes. We get huge battle scenes where the Z's are taking over entire cities, and you see surges of them very similar to waves just thrashing against the masses. While these are some of the cooler parts of the film, I also felt they were the weakest. The CGI is not great, and it suffers from the same error the Hobbit film did. The Zombies do not look realistic when they CG them. They use exaggerated movements that would look at home in anime or other animation. But in live action movie they just look jarring and out of place. I understand the need for CGI in order to accomplish what they wanted, but the animation issues really stand out. Any sense of Terror quickly fell away when watching these portions, and that should never happen.

The movie was at its strongest when dealing with a small number of Z's. They were more vicious, and seemed far more realistic and thus more terrifying. The movie never becomes horror, but it does have some good jump moments. The action is decent, and there is a lot here to like. I would not call it the ultimate Zombie film, but it was much better then I thought it would be.

In closing, the movie may have failed to live up to the ideas of the book. However it never tries to, and instead makes its own vision and does well with that. The smaller scale action sequences are great, but the larger ones suffer somewhat. That is not to say they detract from the overall enjoyment greatly, but they do remove you from the moment. What you end up with, is a good zombie flick with a decent story and a nice cast. While there were some miss-steps, the movie still delivered a good time and was worth the ticket price.