World War Z (2013)

  "Mother nature is a serial blogger.

She wants to get caught, she leaves bread crumbs, she leaves clues...

She knows how to disguise her weakness as strength..."

- Dr Andrew Fassbach 

(died due to non-zombie preventable cause)

 Teamwork will always help you reach your goal. Let these mindless zombies be an example.

World War Z tells of a story when a strange Zombie-like epidermic breaks out around the world, United Nation investigator, Jerry Lane has to leave his family and return to his former job to find out the cause of the epidermic in hopes to find a cure and a way to fight the outbreak. Starring Brad Pitt as the handsome long haired United Nation agent and hero, Jerry Lane and Daniella Kertesz as his Israeli soldier sidekick, only known as "Segen". The two may finally bring hope to a world closing on to a zombie apocalypse.

When you think our hero needs protection, these military dudes need our hero to save them in the end.

There are a lot of zombie movies out there. They are mostly B-rated films and much of the time, zombies are used as a gimmick for violence and gore, and becoming less of a horror movie. There are especially a growing number of zombie apocalypse movies. Gone are the days where we see the world end in cinema by asteroids, natural disasters, weapons of mass destruction and robots. Gone are the days especially when Hollywood cinema used to showcase us a bright future (The Fifth Element, Back to the Future: Part Two), much of the movies today keep reminding us that our future is going to be dark, scary and bleak. Perhaps, to some extent that might be true. When we are beginning to see instability in many countries, natural disasters ranging from Earthquakes to Tsunamis occurring now and then, a sudden outbreak of diseases, rumors of war and destruction, and a declining morality in the newer generation, some of the things we see in the movies are actually not far off.

My Precious!

What do I think of this movie? Not bad... I love the global scope of the film, especially when our hero, Jerry Lane had to do a lot of traveling that gives us a glimpse of what's happening around the world. I was a little disappointed that we couldn't see anything of South Korea. The setting was all dark and raining, and all the scenes are mostly indoors with no sign of any Asian soldiers or civilians. Even the zombies that chased after them don't look Asian... then again it's hard to tell in the dark and in the rain. But once he travelled to Jerusalem, Israel, I was sold. It felt that the movie was shot on location and really felt like there's a current zombie outbreak there. How in the world did they get to find a place similar to Israel and get that many extras to crowd the set. That's perhaps the best part of the film. I love the grand scale of the movie, even the zombie outbreak there seems a lot scarier compared to the rest of the film. Especially seeing zombies climbing on top of one another like ants to get over the wall and to bring down a helicopter, that's a whole new concept to the zombie genre.

 Mount Doomed

I especially love the realistic take on a zombie outbreak. The use of televised news, the chaotic environment, the confusion at the start of the film and the military action during an outbreak, really ground the entire film in reality. The not so realistic part were mostly around our hero, Jerry Lane.  SPOILER ALERT!! As much as the filmmakers  wanted to make him the every-man's man, he is showcased as a "can't touch me-and-will-always-win" hero. What are the odds he and his family survive a car accident with little to no injury? Why in the first place did he reacted to an explosion in the traffic jam and a dumpster truck crashing through the traffic, by ramming on the accelerator of the car? How can he look and walk so healthily after he injected himself with a lethal-but-curable disease? I already knew and expected our hero to inject himself and then waltz out of the room and down the corridor with the attitude and confidence that the zombie can't touch him. The scene where he puts a message on the camera to tell his wife and family that he loves them, holds no weight at all. Our Jerry Lane suffered just as John McClane did in the course of Die Hard 1 to Die Hard 5, where he turned from the every-man's vulnerable man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time to an invincible "can't-touch-me" super commando. SPOILER END!!

This is one zombie movie where the shooting have been axed... Get it, axed?

Zombies... As of this day and age, we've been treated with slow moving zombies, fast moving zombies, dancing zombies, brain eating zombies, flesh eating zombies, plant eating zombies, rotting zombies, freshly fleshed zombies, mutated zombies, animal zombies, nazi zombies, slow converting zombies, fast converting zombies, raised-from-the-grave zombies, virus-causing zombies and etc..etc... Here in this movie, we are presented with the fast moving, fast conversion, virus-causing zombies. Not the hungry for brains or flesh type, and not the ones easily killed with a head shot. They aren't scary as individuals, even that lone zombie that was waiting for Jerry outside the glass room felt to me like a small threat. But when they come in hoards, in huge numbers and in waves of tsunami, that's where their strength lies, that's the horrifying part of it.
I was even expecting Brad Pitt, our hero to find a stash of weapons of all forms, shapes and sizes, and go out on a zombie massacre, as presented in most zombie movies.

A rally for more public transportation...

The scope and the scale of the film really sold this movie to me. The zombies hoard really scared the wits out of me. I enjoyed the film a lot. The twist in the end of how they work out to find a way to deal with the zombies was a little cliche. But ultimately, it didn't bother me as much as the fact they didn't even find out the cause of the zombie outbreak. Leave that to the sequel. I'm good with it. However, I would love to see their original alternate third act where they showcase the Battle of Moscow where there were multiple front lines of people fighting against zombies. That, to me, would make the title "World War Z" a lot more sense. I understand that this film is based on the book of the same name, and only the title and the 1st paragraph of the book stays in the movie. It just makes me want to get my hands on the book and read the original written oral history of World War Z. I give this movie a 7 out of 10 break-dancing zombies.