Zombie Dark Thirty: World War Z

World War Z was a mighty troubled production. Extensive re-shoots, last minute rewrites, creative conflicts, release date bumps and a budget north of $190 million had pundits thinking this adaptation of Max Brooks’ zombie apocalypse saga would be an outright box office apocalypse of its own. The surprise is that producer/star Brad Pitt and director Marc Forster (The Kite Runner, Quantum of Solace) have delivered a pretty spectacularly entertaining movie. Like the hungry ghouls it depicts, World War Z came back from the dead.

The novel has less of a narrative through-line (there is no main character, per se) and reads more like a mosaic. Pitt was drawn to the project intent on using a genre picture “…as a Trojan horse for sociopolitical problems, and what would the effect on the world be if everything we knew was upside-down and pulled out from under us?” World War Z begins with an almost comedic succession of production company logos that threaten to go on forever – but the team that cut this movie knew what the hell they were doing. From almost the first shot, World War Z is a relentless exercise in tension.

The “Zekes” of World War Z are more reminiscent of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later than the rotting ratings champs of The Walking Dead. These undead are infected with super-charged rabies, often moving in ferocious swarms. Pitt is a retired United Nations investigator who’s just trying to take care of his family when the zom-pocalypse busts loose – and bust loose it does, in spectacular fashion, as Pitt and his family are stuck in gridlock, quickly realizing that something very wrong is happening around them. His unique skill set gives him little choice but to join the team tasked with tracking down the original source of the pandemic, in the hope of finding a cure. The bulk of the film is an Outbreak-style virus thriller, globe-trotting to locations like South Korea and Israel like some kind of catastrophic Bond movie.

The film is full of incredible action sequences, stress and anxiety. Pitt’s in just about every scene and his resourcefulness carries the movie. Look for new Doctor Who Peter Capaldi as a W.H.O. Doctor, oddly enough. Original cinematographer Robert Richardson left the film near the end of principal photography to begin shooting Django Unchained – he later had his name removed from the film, unhappy at the conversion to 3-D against his wishes. By all accounts the third-act rewrite work by Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard very likely saved the picture and helped turn things around. The score by Marco Beltrami drives the feeling of chaos and combines with the editing of Roger Barton (The Grey) and Matt Chesse to deliver a mood of palpable dread and unease.

Production woes may have ruled the day, but this is a great looking and enthralling epic that seldom drags and is infinitely better than one might have expected. World War Z does a great job of considering the frayed tether of society and disease and letting us freak out at the prospect of it all coming unraveled. A must-rent.