World War Z (2013)

I knew that I was asking for trouble when I said in my last entry that I was sensing a trend this month in me seeing a disturbing streak of big budget movies with no soul to them despite the spectacle. I mentioned that I needed a break from all of that, and what do I do? Almost immediately after writing that, I go out and see "World War Z," the most expensive zombie movie ever made with its price tag of around $200 million.

I am not a smart person sometimes.

I won't lie, I was never fully on board with this one from the get-go. I'm zombied out. I just can't bring myself to care about anything zombie related anymore. This culture really has seemingly hit an event horizon of zombie obsession, almost like zombies ourselves oddly enough. And this over-saturation and rabid following and praise of everything zombie related simply because it is zombie related has completely killed the genre for me. I'm sick of hearing about them, and by the way, I don't care how good "The Walking Dead" is supposed to be. The fact that all I hear fans of the show do is complain about how bad it is speaks otherwise.

And while we're at it, I don't care about "Doctor Who," either. Shut up about it. I would have maybe shown interest in it if half the people on my Facebook wall didn't post 57 "Doctor Who" related updates and pictures every day.

Anyway, my expectations for "World War Z" were firmly in the ditch, seeing as it looked bad from the trailer, I don't care about zombies, the production history for the film was troubled to say the least, the whole "zombie swarm" thing looked dumb to me, and it's the only zombie movie I can think off the top of my head that is PG-13. Can't say as I was expecting much.

And what do you know? "Not much" is exactly what I got.

"World War Z" is basically the trailer. No, seriously. Everything you need to know about this movie can be ascertained by watching the trailer, in which nearly the entire film is laid out in near chronological order. And since it's a zombie film, it's basically on a plot railroad as it is. Zombie movies are nothing if not consistent, being that once you've seen a few, you've seen them all.

Look out, they're attacking you right in the CGI!

Brad Pitt is a guy who flees from the zombie apocalypse with his family, finding relative safety on a military ship, he has to go out and find a cure, which he (kind of) does, and the movie ends on the unforgivably overused note of "This is only the beginning." Because as we all know, closing your movie by saying those words is always a mark of a film that it totally not cliched and tired, and undoubtedly the ending will be satisfying. Except if you're in the real world, or in "World War Z," where that's actually really dumb.

The whole "cure" bit is really less of a cure and more of a band-aid which will allow people to get away from the infected zones. Brad Pitt discovers that if you are sick, the zombies won't go after you out of some bizarre plot contrivance that is either nature doing the "survival of the fittest" thing, or the zombies being picky eaters - Unless you're healthy, the zombies will leave you alone. Like, if you have some kind of really bad disease, they won't even touch you to kill you. This of course raises all kinds of issues, chief among them being the question of "What is the threshold of health that the zombies can instantly sense?" They won't go after Brad Pitt once he's injected himself with some terrible but curable disease, but what about people with heart conditions? What about people who just have colds?

The zombies are wiping out entire cities with gusto. In fact we see Philadelphia get annihilated. Everyone got eaten. We didn't hear reports of sick people walking out unscathed. You're telling me every person in Philly was the epitome of health? What about fat people? They aren't healthy. Why aren't fat people immune from zombie attacks with their high cholesterol and blood pressure and clogged arteries that will kill them? If that was the case America would be the last country standing. U.S.A! U.S.A!

The whole issue of "choosing a healthy host to propagate the virus" becomes even more stupid when you take into consideration that the zombie's bodies aren't even living, so the fact that they were healthy doesn't matter one damn bit. But hey, what do I know? I'm not a professional screen writer.

By the way, it's interesting that Brad Pitt's whole family, and in fact everyone in the world just kind of rolls with the situation. There's nobody freaking out, or even a question of "What's happening?" They just kind of all say "Well, looks like it's the zombie apocalypse. Let's do this thing." It's almost like they're zombie movie fanatics themselves.

All of this could have been slightly overlooked had the action of the film been at least halfway passable. But as it is, the action in "World War Z" is so absurdly shaky, undecipherable and dark that it is nearly impossible to tell what the hell just happened for about 90% of every action sequence. Now this movie is loaded with action, which is one of the only good things I can say about it, but what does it matter if you can't tell what's happening?

For as much plentiful action as there was, there were very few points during which I felt a solid understanding of what was happening or who I was even looking at half the time. The camera jolted and jostled around so much, and the editing cuts were so quick and frantic that I felt like my eyeballs were going to explode. And then I remembered it was directed by Marc Forster, the hack who brought us "Quantum of Solace," which had the worst filmed action scenes of any Bond movie ever, and it all made sense.

Huh. When you look at the zombie swarm in a still frame it just kind of looks silly doesn't it?

But the thing that kills, utterly KILLS "World War Z" before any of the lame plot devices, the uninspired paycheck collecting acting, the random useless might as well be nameless characters, and the terrible action was the absolutely unforgivable rating of PG-13. This is a movie that was clearly intended to be rated R, as was pretty much every single zombie movie ever made. But since we can't be having gore in a movie about PEOPLE GETTING EATEN, we need to have black blood (if any blood at all), confusing editing, and shaky camera so we never get a good look at the supposed carnage. If I had never seen a zombie movie in my life, I'd say the zombies just go around tackling people, because that's about all you ever see happen.

Listen to me very carefully. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Because I'm about to once again, drop the science.

It's time for "LESSONS WITH PROFESSOR PAT!"

Pictured above - A credible movie critic.

LESSON #95 - "A few extra butts in seats is not worth a PG-13!"

Listen. It's a hard fact, but it's time to accept the truth. Zombie movies suck. Almost all of them do. It's just a fact of life. Embrace it, and know that no matter how bad it sucks, you will still have a built-in, hardcore audience that will see it no matter what.

And do you know the reason for that? It's because of the gore. Blood and guts. Carnage. People getting torn limb from limb while being eaten alive. That's literally the only thing your audience wants in a zombie flick. What, do you think they're going for the social commentary? That message was overdone and old in the 70's. Yes, consumerism. Loss of humanity. We get it. Even the masters of putting that message in their zombie movies have stopped giving a crap about that hackneyed moral.

We want blood. It's literally the only thing keeping most of us awake during this crap. Don't deny us that. Otherwise you look like a pansy.

 This is what happens in zombie movies. Accept it.

/science drop

 That's about all I have to say about "World War Z." I don't care about zombies, and this has done little to change my mind.

And I'm still not watching "The Walking Dead."

BWAAAAAAAAA...........BWAAAAAAAAAAA.........BWAAAAAAAAAAA.........

THE BOTTOM LINE - "World War Z" may look pretty, but like all that I have seen before it this month, being pretty does not excuse the fact that it's boring, dumb, and soulless. The fact that it's PG-13 just makes it insulting on top of being a waste of time.