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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 06/23/2013 : 18:51:08
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This review reference Despicable Me 2 - review to be posted here soon.
And, right away, let me say: This is a game waiting to happen. Hell, there are probably Xmas marketing meetings in progress as we speak!
I didn't plan it, but it was very interesting indeed seeing a double bill of WWZ and Despicable Me 2, because the underlying themes are so similar. Of course they couldn't be more different in execution, target audience, and above all a rationale for what happens next.
The common theme involves that same old/same old plot device of enticing a retired operative back into the fray because of a threat so pressing that he must de-prioritize his beloved family - for whom he left active service in the first place.
WWZ's operative is retired investigator Gerry Lane [Brad Pitt], who cannot ignore [well, who the hell can?!!] the global invasion of "the undead" spreading like a pandemic virus with speed and a voracious appetite to eat up great continental chunks. It's the cine deluge that plunges us straight into the film, after a brief Pitt-stop for breakfast with his fam.
Oh, yes, he's a caring sharing dad, using all his UN negotiating skills to help his asthmatic daughter with her breathing. And, goldarnit, he makes pancakes! How could you not just love him!
But when he gets the call from a very worried former work colleague, surrounded by the kind of people sitting at desks with phones and puters - like at NASA, or The War Room - well, weigh it up, dude. Your kids or the Planet? So, well he IS the hero/star/producer after all - when he's gotta go, he's gotta go.
The entire rest of the film snaps you into unstoppable action like a rock from a slingshot. In you go, down and dirty. No time for dialogue. No time for character. No time for plot. The through-line is simple. Git those critters afore they git you.
I know, I know this is based on a novel which allegedly does take time for more than the We are Good, They are Bad - KILL THEM thing. For one thing, they're already dead. I haven't read the book, so I don't know whether a construction closer to it would have saved this movie from its mindless plod.
It's like the zombies it portrays. Very speedy when least expected, yet plodding as a stroke patient. Mindless. Indistinguishable, without personality of any kind. Incapable of logic, dialogue.
Is there, could there be any way out of this? Well, c'mon kids - it's Hollywood. It's lovely Brad. Of course there's a way out. Though a sequel of dread and doom is confirmed by the end.
Can Pitt steer a blockbuster? IMHO far better than Marc Forster did. MF's no greenhorn, and, to be fair, his eye-of-the-storm action sequences are stunning, if a tad short on originality.
And there must a round of applause for Production Designer Nigel Phelps, whose transition from almost normal to apocalyptic is as sneaky and potent as those pesky zombies.
The acting - well, those you've seen and liked in other films don't disappoint in parts they could have phoned in. Sadly, some of the less experienced thesps either try too hard, or don't understand how to compensate for the ciphers the script asks them to inhabit.
You'll probably see, if you care to, many comments about the lack of logic throughout the story. Unfortunately, they're all too true. Like most films of the genre, though, the rationale is that even faster pacing will fly you by those plot-holes before you can fall in.
There are all kindsa rumours in Webland about a troubled production. But, hey, I saw this film - and that's the only one I can review.
Which leaves only the matter of what parallels this incomprehensible danger might have with our own dear world. I've seen labels attached such as terrorism, the demise of public health, the social underclass, et al.
Sadly, there's nowhere near enough in this film to begin to discuss these questions with any cogency. Maybe they're waiting for the sequel. Or the game.
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benj clews 
"...."
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Posted - 06/26/2013 : 11:44:48
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You know what? I enjoyed this film (and I'm not just saying that because I was sat at a screening personally introduced by Pitt and cheekily shook his hand).
Okay, it did nothing especially new (although the zombie hordes are some of the most incredible CG I've seen- both distant and ant-like in their thousands, and close up scrabbling over each other down narrow back alleys) and the final third seemed a markedly different direction to the rest of the film, even involving a bizarre Coke Ad moment... but still... it was big and loud and just what I expected from the trailers. Basically, pretty much what you expect in the cinema this time of year.
However, as I understand it, fans of the book will loathe it. The book features neither Brad Pitt's character or these newfangled fast-moving zombies. Even the source of the outbreak is changed/ dismissed as irrelevant for fear of upsetting the nation and not being able to hook into its sizable box office potential (this is starting to become my new cinematic hate after that whole "gotta' get a 12a rating" thing). |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 07/02/2013 : 01:38:04
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| Have heard NOTHING BUT RAVES. More when I see it for myself. |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 09/24/2013 : 02:43:26
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I thought it was a glorious popcorn movie.
Those scenes of the zombs crawling up like ants? Bliss.
The last :35? VERY scary.
Plus, unlike WAR OF THE WORLDS, you really believed the father figure really cared.
My only beef? A stupid haircut.
DO NOT MISS. |
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Demisemicenturian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 09/21/2020 : 00:23:52
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quote:
Originally posted by benj clews
You know what? I enjoyed this film (and I'm not just saying that because I was sat at a screening personally introduced by Pitt and cheekily shook his hand).
Now that certainly would have made it well worth it for me. I thought even having Pitt in it would be enough, but it was World War zzZZZ for me. Given that I am not picky about films and enjoy virtually all of them for whatever they are and rate most of them at least 4/5 here, this is pretty notable.
Here is an older thread for the same film. |
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World War Z
