World War Z

We here at "The Aisle of Mann" love zombies. We've loved zombies before the TV show "The Walking Dead" made zombies cool and now everyone loves zombies including your grandma.

The "zombie" movie is a genre in of its own. Usually made for cheap and marketed to teens the zombie genre can range everywhere from the funny: "Shaun of the Dead" and "Zombieland", the topical: "Dawn of the Dead,1978" and the downright scary: "28 Days Later". The newest addition to the zombie genre is "World War Z". Easily the biggest, most expensive zombie movie ever made it also has easily the biggest movie star in the world headlining: Brad Pitt.

Purist's might scoff at the fact that the cult that is the zombie culture would be soiled with the likes of a big time movie star like Brad Pitt and a budget of nearly 200 million and rated PG-13. "World War Z" is based on the bestselling book by Max Brooks and blatantly is the story of the worlds demise during the end all be all zombie uprising. The budget for this material is warranted, zombie godfather George A. Romero couldn't even tackle this subject matter on a small scale budget. The question is always of course, is it any good? In short, while not the best zombie movie I've seen "World War Z" gets the distinct honor of being named the "Citizen Kane" of zombie movies.

As I stated earlier "WWZ" is based on a well known book of the same name, I've read the book and I assume at least some of you out there reading this have read it as well. compare and contrast between book and movie is not the goal here, to summarize: I LOVED the book, the movie I liked very very much. If you are going to the movie for a exact interpretation of the book then I'd just stay home, enjoy the movie as its own.

Brad Pitt plays "Gerry" a former UN worker who is now a stay at home dad. A zombie outbreak occurs while Pitt, his wife and two daughters are stuck in traffic in downtown Philadelphia. The movie is divided into two halves, the first is about Pitt and his family trying to escape zombies and get somewhere safe has some good action scenes and ok for PG-13 zombie gore. The family finally gets aboard a UN aircraft carrier and Gerry is forced to go back into the field to help find the origin of this outbreak which may lead to a cure. This is where the movie really picks up for me and "World War Z" turns into a superior film.

Other than the zombies, this is Pitt's movie. Other than character actor David Morse (The Green Mile) and a blink and you miss it cameo from Matthew Fox (Lost) Pitt is surrounded by either zombies or actors you never heard of. His performance here is subdued for the genre, "WWZ" is trying to make an as true to life movie about zombies as there can be and it does a good job. I would have liked to seen a little more humor however. The scenes between Pitt and his family are his most effective, he doesn't go into pure zombie kick ass mode too much which was disappointing.

What about the true stars, the zombies? Traditional zombies move slow and awkwardly, zombies for the new generation are quick and smart for being half dead. "WWZ" goes with the quick zombies here, no new ground is broken in terms of the makeup or how the zombies act but I did find myself jumping out of my seat a few times as "WWZ" does offer a few genuine scares. The biggest thing holding "WWZ" back is its PG-13 rating. Zombies attack in droves in some scenes and attack countless people but hardly a spatter of blood is shown. What it lacks in blood and guts "WWZ" does in fact make up for it in action scenes, two in particular during a zombie attack on a in flight plane and on the streets of Jerusalem are better than ANYTHING in "Man of Steel". The final showdown between Pitt and the zombies is tight and nerve-racking even if it is a slight homage to the raptors in "Jurassic Park."

What I hope "WWZ" brings to the table is that genre pictures such as zombie flicks can be sold to the masses and can carry a big budget and big movie stars. "World War Z" does a great job of wiping the wretched taste of "Man of Steel" from my palate even if there was a little left to be desired.