Continuing in my series of “whatever I feel like writing about at the moment,” I thought the Ole Miss campus and surrounding Oxford community would benefit from my words of wisdom on one of the summer’s biggest releases, Brad Pitt’s “World War Z.”
I was pretty excited to see the movie, which ended up happening because “Monster’s University” was sold out. It was between “World War Z” and “Man of Steel,” which made it a really easy choice.
The movie is based on one of my favorite books, “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War” by Max Brooks. I will discuss the movie from two different perspectives: its merits as a standalone film and how it functions as an adaptation of the book.
As an adaptation, it’s awful. The “oral history” part of the subtitle was obvious dropped, as the novel does not have a central perspective. Written from the perspective of many different people involved in different aspects of the zombie war, called “World War Z,” the novel provides great perspective on what happened, told from different countries and time periods in the war, as well as from the military and civilians.
The movie dumps this to make Brad Pitt the central focus, effectively removing the central point of the book and making the film unrecognizable from the novel. I know everyone nowadays complains about how books don’t follow the movies, but when the only thing you take from a work is the fact that it has zombies, what’s the point of even making it an adaptation and not a new franchise?
As a film, however, it’s great fun. The production has been mocked by the media due to a complete rewrite and reshoot of the ending (rewritten by Damon Lindelof, co-creator of “Lost”), and it was expected that, appropriately, it would derail the movie.
It all worked out in the end. As a zombie film, it’s one of the better ones I’ve seen (probably second only to “28 Days Later”). These zombies are fast, often faster than the humans running, and the action scenes are choreographed and shot to see all the action with none of the shaky cam that a lot of zombie movies feature.
Although I was the only person in my group who seemed to enjoy the movie (shout-out to the friend who was so bored he ordered Chili’s online for pickup after the movie instead of watching it), I still recommend it.
Don’t go expecting answers to deep philosophical questions to how humans interact when faced with world changing conditions. Don’t go expecting to see the forerunner of this year’s Academy Awards.
Go for the great action scenes and watchable performance by Brad Pitt. The ending may be a bit eye-rolly, but in a movie where zombies use each other as a platform to scale a giant wall, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
Casey gives the movie a thumbs up, which is more than enough justification for you to get out there.
