World War Z

Sanitized and not happening onscreen mean that Brad Pitt's production company didn't really use the book when adapting the film. Shame. There is nothing safe about that novel and it could be an incredible globe-trotting epic about the 10 year zombie war.

On second thought, it's more like 2 weeks.

I wasn't really a fan of the book. I get the intention behind the book but there really wasn't a "story." It was merely a record of the plague. As far as the movie, I believe they are hoping that they would be able to do sequels so it spans more than just the amount of time it does in the first movie.

Without having seen the movie yet, I suppose the infection can easily spread again from a single carrier. All it takes is one mother refusing to have her kid vaccinated from the zombie virus because she's afraid her child would get autism.

When? When he woke up in the WHO building, it had been removed.

It's not stupid, but it's more like the Nick Jr. version of 28 Days Later.

Saw the movie last night and liked it more than the book. However, it was still just a good popcorn movie. Nothing thought provoking or new about it.

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I felt that Brad's worldwide travels were pointless since he didn't really discover anything about the plague at all. The "cure" he discovered could have been found by any other scientist at some point just by observing.

The book is presented as the rejected record of the 10 year zombie war as written by a historian. The US govt decided the report was too emotionally charged and the historian refused to dumb it down. He took his report and published it so the public knew what really happened. It's really a short story collection presented as a novel in chronological order. The historian visits all the big locations to find out what really happened from the survivors. It's a fascinating read.

Max Brooks is a trained historian who lucked out with a novelty book on zombies. Now he gets to write fiction for a living. What does he do with his first serious effort? A book only a historian could write.

As for Insidious 2, I'm excited. It looks really good. The first one blew me away, as all James Wan/Leigh Whannel horror film collaborations have. Can you believe it's the first time they get to direct/write a sequel to their own story? All the Saws were written by other people. Dead Silence didn't get a sequel.

The Conjuring is also coming out, but Whannel didn't write that one. I'm intrigued by the premise but not holding my breath. Paranormal investigation films go sour far too often to get excited this far in advance.

The book is really much better than I expected it to be. The gradual reveal of the religious and political changes brought about by the war are well thought-out and very impressive for a zombie novel. Sounds like the movie will be disappointing.

I saw it this morning and liked it quite a lot. I agree with Whizzer that the third act was weak. Why was Cardiff basically deserted except for the people at the WHO building and that one woman who peeked from a window? Isn't the world overrun? The final resolution seemed to be such a weird way to go about it.

I did like the bit about the 10th man in Israel. An interesting way of thinking.

As a side note, if anyone wants to venture uptown, the AMC on 84th is in the midst of a renovation and it appears that they've completed the lobby and the lower level theaters, which is where I saw the film this morning. All of the theaters have been retrofitted with large arm chairs that have a push button reclining option. It's a bit much honestly, but a welcome upgrade from the previous seating.

Updated On: 6/22/13 at 07:36 PM

Let me put this succinctly, because there seems to be a million different think pieces on what this movie represents for Hollywood:

What is wrong with the Hollywood blockbuster can be found in World War Z for the simple fact somebody gave Marc Forster another shot at an action movie after butchering Quantum of Solace. Those same people also gave Forster a lot of freedom to have input early on to change a lot of the original text of Max Brooks' book (that is worth checking out and yes, it is written like a history book because the structure is the point with Brooks' major influence being Studs Terkel) that made it not even resemble it and then came a lot of rewrites from many people not even credited (although Damon Lindelof did get credit for his 11th hour contribution to the airplane scene). Now you hear Forster may have not directed the whole movie at all or it was taken away from him at least. Somebody saw the zombie craze and instead seeing a book where its structure actually was the reason it stood out decided to take one little part and make it a whole damn movie but instead looked at Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later and thought, 'What a zombie movie needs is more speed and more sprawl'- nothing like the Brooks book. Soderbergh's Contagion felt like something more based on World War Z and it had 1/3 of the reported budget this turkey has.

Saw this tonight and enjoyed it, but I do agree it runs out of steam and the ending is unsatisfying. It seemed as though they didn't know how to end it...because the ending isn't really an "ending." Or maybe they want to keep it open for a potential sequel? I have no idea.

Anyway, I did think it was an interesting movie, I appreciated the fact that some of the most involving scenes were the quieter moments, I really cared about Pitt getting back to his wife and family, and I thought the more tension-filled moments were actually pretty frightening (lack of violence and all). It is a pretty uneven film, though. The pacing is jarring at times, how it shifts from chases to quiet, intimate moments at the drop of a hat.

The best moment in the film, to me, is the first zombie sequence, when we see the first zombie turn, as Pitt's daughter's teddy bear is "counting down." What a smart, uniquely shot, directed, and written sequence of events. I also have to say, even if the writing fell short, I liked that it didn't build up to one massive zombie blow-out, with buildings exploding and Pitt jumping from rooftops. I appreciated the fact that the writers wanted the movie to build up to a more emotionally satisfying climax, as opposed to a more visually satisfying one. Too bad the execution was a bit lazy in tying the story up.

Regardless, I'm glad I saw it. It's cleverer than a of a lot of other summer "blockbusters," and it's almost undeniably entertaining.