Against
all odds -– based on an episodic novel seemingly impossible to adapt
straightforward, and a production history rife with massive re-shoots and enough
upheaval to make James Cameron wince -– actor/producer/Robert Redford-blessed
Brad Pitt has performed a miracle. He’s made a fun, smart, summer popcorn
thriller with “World War Z.” (Max Brooks -- son of Mel -- wrote the cult novel, for which TV
sensation “The Walking Dead” likely owes its existence.)
Pitts plays Gerry
Lane, a former United Nations special investigator of human rights abuses now a
stay-at-home dad. Quickly in the film, Gerry and his doting wife (Mireille Enos)
are driving their daughters in Center City Philadelphia when radio news pops of
a rabies outbreak among humans, and then traffic around the family pops and booms
as the city falls into mysterious chaos. (The editing in these scenes is
jittery with fear and gripping as hell.) Gerry catches a glance: Deranged people
attacking each other, biting arms and faces and legs, and spreading the inhuman
malady, with eyes bulging and bones cracking with sick unnatural movement.
Of
course Gerry is needed for his wonder-boy skills, and the U.N. calls and saves him and family,
before tasking our hero with the impossible: Find the origin of the outbreak
and any possible cure before the humanity flat lines. With that, Gerry globetrots
to South Korea, then Israel, then onward and outward, all the time thinking of
his family. He’s a good dad first. (Debate the moral choices made here later, on your own time.)
Pitt and director Marc Forster, and a long gang
of writers, including several “Lost” alumni, and some replacement director
unknown, have nailed not just an undeniably cool version of the Brooks’ book,
they also have cleared one other hurdle: Breaking from “Walking Dead” and other
zombie horror classics, “Shaun of the Dead” among them. How so? They drop the “every man”
angle and make this a mystery film from the top down, the world’s “police” attempting
to beat a clock to save all of humanity. You can practically hear the “Law
& Order” ka-klum! noise. And it works.
Yes, the lack of any gore and guts for
the PG-13 rating and the preordained knowledge that no one we care for, or
Gerry cares for, will be chomped liver, breaks the dramatic weight, but the
finale with Pitt staring down a zombie with an overbite is marvelous, chilling fun.
Also kick-ass: A scene set inside a jumbo jet with a female Israeli soldier
(Daniella Kertesz) saving our hero’s ass, plus the fall of Jerusalem is beautifully-played,
large-scale CGI work seen from the eye of God. (Speaking of, the politics pitched
here seem like a dare to the real world, and may be worth a second watch on their own.)
If you need a hint of the
behind-the-scenes “Z” chaos, look quick for actor Matthew Fox (also from “Lost”)
as a helicopter pilot. He appears for only a few frames. In an original cut, he
was a major character. But that I did not fully pick up on that in the theater? That’s
as cool as taking out a zombie with a kro-bar and drinking a Pepsi to celebrate. And, yes, that happens. B+
That Pepsi scene was awesome. Most clever use of product placement ever.
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