World War Z

[drquest]

I didn't see a thread for this, so here goes. I started reading the book last week, but didn't finish it yet, was reading it on a plane and haven't picked it back up yet. The book sets the tone and the actual setting, but don't expect the movie to be the book.

My son and I went to see this yesterday and I had fairly low expectations for it. The production has been mired in pre and post production issues and adding Brad Pitt to the mix really didn't seem to help anything for the movie.

With that in mind, we really enjoyed the movie! There's some plot issues, but the pacing of the movie never really drags. I have a little issue with the current trend to move the camera around quickly and cut to different cameras too fast which makes it hard to track what's going on and there's a decent amount of that going on.

Aside from that, it has some intense moments, and the effects were quite good. The best thing is I really wanted to see more of the upside down world they were living in when the movie ended. There's a lot of movies I go to and when it's done, I'm done as well. This one, wasn't like that for me.

[Nostalgiabuff]

going to see it tonight. can't wait

[RickD]

Great movie! well worth the wait

[Hector]

I'll check it out after the weekend.

[Starroid Raiders Dagon]

Watched it Saturday for my birthday (toss up between this and Superman, but I love Zombies so WWZ won out). It was no Dawn of the Dead and the effects were too fast for my eyes (hard to see the "zombies" in the masses. I like more gore and would have preferred it if it were R rated.
I sit at the back so I don't have people chatting behind me or moving around behind my seat but usually I ended up with some chatty Cathy somewhere very close. This time it was two Asian chaps that were scared like two school girls. One guy would say he was going to scream if something happens (door opens, character walks by, pretty much anything) and then would let out this girlish shriek. Apart from occasionally taking me out of the moment, they weren't that bad, and they did make me laugh. However, how they could keep saying the main star is going to die within the first 20 min. of movie time and then again, and again every 10 or so minutes through the movie, makes no sense to me at all.

Couple of things (SPOILERS)

I liked that the cell phone foreshadowing showed up quickly and wasn't so much of an IMPACT moment, which I thought was going to happen.
FINALLY, someone protects their body with something!!! They taped magazines around the forearms (my two seat mates figured the zombies should be able to bite through those with no problem at all. Oddly enough, I must have tried to bite through a magazine because I know that you cant). I just know if I am going out with the chance of encountering a zombie, I am wearing a couple of layers of clothes.
Didn't like the medical control center. Okay, is there a public address system? Start making noise to get them out of one area and into another. Okay no PA system? Ring one of the phones in the office furthest away from where you need to be. AT LEAST, it makes some noise so the zombies cant hear any movement you make.
You are in a building with a bunch of zombies and you have a rough body count. You have hallways to funnel them in with enforced doors to stop them, and metal you can sharpen into pointed spears, so break the openings in the glass holes of the door and keep poking them in the head until they are all dead.
Just seems like anything is a better idea than getting into an area you are not familiar with, and having fast raving zombies around all corners.

[Nostalgiabuff]

saw it as a double feature at the drive in with man of steal last night. great movie. my whole family really enjoyed it. a lot of edge of your seat stuff

oh yeah, and MOS was pretty good too

[Gorn Captain]

I'm still hoping Gwyneth Paltrow's decapitated head will show up again.
Chasing Pitt around with the cardboard box trailing behind it...

[Random Axe]

I don't have time to see many movies, still haven't seen MoS. This looks pretty good, though. I really like what former ND coach Lou Holtz tweeted about it...

"The shombies in World War Z would hath shtopped Alathama's offensh betther than the Irishish dith. :("

[supes]

Took the family(minus the 6yr old) to see it tonight, everyone had a good time. As we were leaving I read that they already decided to make a sequel. The one part that drove me nuts was how they didn't wear any protective gear when they set out on the mission, but they did wrap there four arms with magazines earlier. that being said it was a good popcorn movie.

[spacecaps]

A few extremely vague spoilers ahead in my review but I'm not giving anything away:

So I went to see this the other night and it was sold out. Probably had something to do with the fact that 7 of the 12 theaters are showing Man of Steel. Finally saw it tonight and freakin loved it!! The thing I don't like about Zombie movies is that usually they're all blood and guts which I find unsettling. This had all the implied gore without showing any of it. Tons of action and a great premise in a really played out genre. The negatives I've heard about this movie dealt with "shaky cam" (which I found none of), it's a "find the cure" zombie film, (which I found totally works), it's PG-13 (which I'm usually against but for the non-gore factor, was grateful for) and there were production problems while filming (honestly who gives a frack? It doesn't show in the movie at all.)

The first 20 minutes of the film is literally Left 4 Dead The Movie. The rest of the movie is all suspense horror reminiscent to what the original Resident Evil video games were. Sneaking around, trying not to make noise, and then running for your lives. If you like gore in your zombie flicks, don't be dismayed that there's really none of it here because not only is there plenty of violence, there's also some intense action, awesome suspense, and some downright brutal scenes too. My favorites included a guy accidentally shooting himself in the head after slipping and someone else getting what I like to call the Hershel treatment after a bite. There's a lot of implied violence too, which works great as well. There's just no pulling out intestines Walking Dead type stuff. The movie also makes good use of humor in the film. I thought Brad stopping for a Pepsi was perfectly timed. Magazine armor was really clever and would totally work and I also liked that "zombie" was just a term they used to categorize the infected. By not having them actually be the dead come back to life supernaturally, it made perfect sense to have them run fast and get riled up when one of their own was killed. Also, in what is becoming a tired genre, WWZ actually brings a pretty plausible infection/cure scenario. The movie always teeters on the bleak without going into total despair. There's no happy ending either. Sure it's hopeful but by no means is it a feel good closing.

Now as for the far fetched elements, there's a reason no one survives a commercial airline plane crash. When those things fall out of the sky, they shatter, as the one in this movie totally did and yet the protagonists survive. That was the one "you've gotta be kidding me moment" of the movie. Also if the scientist rang the phone to give Gerry the code, they could have done that in another part of the building to attract the infected when trying to get to the vault. That bothered me a little when it happened but I also thought that given what was going on, maybe no one thought of it till that moment, although the exact same scenario happened earlier for all the wrong reasons. As for not wearing riot gear, it's possible that they just didn't have any where they were. I mean that's not standard issue at a WHO facility and as for the military base in Korea, they may not have been able to get to it once the outbreak occurred. One part of the movie that I found absolutely confusing was the plane refuel scene. I'm guessing they needed to peddle around on bikes so the snipers knew who to shoot and who not to,but they should have taken a minute to hash out the plan out loud so the audience wouldn't be whispering to one another wondering what was going on. (Which totally happened during my showing.)

One other thing that I thought was far fetched is that being from NJ, Newark is one of the worst places to go in the state on a normal day let alone during the Zombie Apocalypse and to get there, you need to take major highways. There was no reason for them to be in that city at all. Newark is also like, an hour and a half away from Philly too whereas Camden is right outside of Philly, it would have made a much more logical choice logistically that they would have ended up there. All these things are so minor though and other than that, the movie was excellent. The two hours flew by and almost every minute was edge of your seat type suspense or action. Also not having the gore as mentioned earlier and virtually no curse words, this is the perfect initiation zombie/horror movie for kids. It's really all suspense. I took my seven year old and he jumped about 10 feet in the air several times but by the end there wasn't any terrible lasting images that would have stayed with him. When it was all over he loved it and so did I. This was easily the best movie I've seen all summer.

[drquest]

Ah glad to hear you guys are liking this too!

A perfect movie it isn't, but it was fun to watch!

Definitely not a standard Zombie flick.

I liked the Israel part quite a bit, but it seemed kind of odd that they would try to get Brad Pitt's character out of there via helicopter as quickly as they were trying when the walls were literally collapsing. And what jumbo jet will stop in the middle of the runway to pick up more passengers??

The WHO part played out pretty good, and I can understand the reservations of the people that were left to not go into the infected wing. They aren't soldiers and were pretty freaked out about it.

[cactus725]

Walking Dead, Dawn of the Dead Fan here....WWZ was ok if it was your first PG 13 Zombie movie. Zombies I can believe...I can't believe Brad Pitt and the female soldier survived the plane crash.....

[Access]

I thought of another thing that you didnt mention. What made these zombies jump like a raped ape when released in the city but then not when chasing Brad Pitt through the corridors in the facility? And what level of 'sickness' did you have to have for them to be not interested? Does your muscle function increase past the point of natural human ability? It didn't really say too much about that, just that the organism wouldn't want to go into a sick host. With that reasoning, why were there not more cancer patients, HIV, etc people walking around unaffected? The problem I have with Zombie movies, is once the initial "Scare" of undead infected people wears off, its essentially a drama about how to cope with the losers who are left. I think a better movie would be one where scientists figure out what causes this unnatural muscle increase, and enhanced sense of well being and synthesizes it into a race of genetically enhanced by zombie dna super beings. That way the movie will have the initial threat of the zombies (which weve all seen a hundred times before and love) but then the real threat comes later once they figure out how to really get nasty with it! lol

[megocrazy]

It was OK. I saw it in 3D. Don't bother not enough 3D moments to justify it. I'm not sure about a sequel. The story line did have a bunch of holes in it like mentioned in previous posts. There are only a fraction of the human race left, could they handle a sequel? I like the "good popcorn movie" reference. That would be my rating.

[spacecaps]

A sequel for a movie like this could have the same events shown from new and different character perspectives which would then make it similar to the novel itself.