by Alan Liotta
World War Z was a labor of love (and pain) for Brad Pitt, who was determined to bring this end-of-the-world zombie invasion thriller to the big screen, and he succeeds at every level. Where Will Smith failed with After Earth, Pitt manages not only to succeed, but to excel.
Z follows the story arc of all the zombie classics–average people caught in the frenzy of a world-wide infection followed by a fight for survival in the hopes to overcome (and not get bitten!) Pitt’s revelation, however, is to take the success of modern zombie stories like 28 Days and mash it up with the story telling of the Bourne movies and Contagion (and The Andromeda Strain before them all). The result is a highly suspenseful, thrilling execution of a movie without any of the blood and gore of most modern horror films.
The story opens with the viewer following Pitt and his family facing mass chaos in Philadelphia just as the infection reaches America’s shores. Pitt, a retired atrocities investigator with the United Nations, and his wife (played a bit stiffly by Mireille Enos) immediately recognize the danger, but seem as confused as everyone else on how to react. After fleeing Philly, they take refuge in Newark with another abandoned family until help can arrive. Once rescued by his former UN boss, played convincingly by Fana Mokoena, Pitt is off to find the source of the infection–and hopefully a cure. The movie then hopscotches across the globe, seeing the devastating effects of the infection, while seemingly leaving Pitt helpless in the destruction.
It has been a long time since a horror movie has delivered strictly on suspense and edge of your seat thrills. This is a movie you find yourself curling up in your seat as you anxiously wait to see if (how) Pitt will extricate himself from one set of danger to the next. It is a movie made to be seen in an audience, which laughs nervously at just the right moments to release the tension, gasps when a character manages to escape death, and calls out when something innocent happens (an ill-timed phone call) that puts everyone in danger.
Pitt also succeeds in managing to deliver important social messages without clubbing the viewer over the head–from the transmission of pandemic disease to the virtue of saving the 1% without making them seem overprivileged. His focus on making the UN serve as the global savior is a bit unrealistic, but it is only tangential to the story. Oddly, however, Pitt scoffs at the government’s advice to “Shelter in Place” and urges that “Movement is life” and yet shows that just about everyone who does move, dies. Not a helpful message for many of the doomsday preppers out there.
One last word, there is no need to see this movie in 3D. Save your money and watch it the good old-fashioned way. The story is so compelling, the tension so intense, the acting so believable, that you won’t miss the artificial use of 3D.
Grade: A
Listen to the review from the BIG show below: