World War Z (91%)

World War Z is a big-budget attempt to make a movie out of a novel, but a novel that is told in an interesting format, through interviews with various fictional characters set up all over the world over the course of a couple decades sometime in the early-to-mid 21st century, concerning an all-out war between humans and flesh-eating, mindless victims of a destructive virus referred to as African Rabies. In our movie production, we see a UN worker named Gerry Lane experiencing the Great Panic first-hand as he travels the world in search of a way to stave off the oncoming zombie pandemic, and save his beloved family.

I saw this film about a week ago, so my memory may be a bit hazy, but I have to say that World War Z was a success, especially after months (even years for some of us) of expecting it to totally suck. As a die-hard fan of zombie films (even if they are a bit overdone as of late. I'm looking at you, Warm Bodies.), I was expecting something a little bit more Max Brooks-esque. What I found instead was a beautifully woven interpretation of Brooks' beautifully written "World War Z", played on-screen by an equal parts terrifyingly badass and adorably family-oriented Brad Pitt. As far as turning the novel, which spans several decades and a plethora of characters, into a single coherent film goes, I thought that director Marc Foster's approach of taking the events of the book and weaving them all through one character worked pretty well. There were some pretty lame scares, but there were some breathtakingly genius moments that we haven't really seen in zombie films, such as (spoiler alerts) a magnificent airplane crash with the undead flying through the air, soldiers using near-silent bicycles to sneak past a horde of zed in a rainstorm, or even large masses of zombies pushing and shoving each other to the point that they just become a wave of terror.

That being said, visually, the film left a bit to be desired. Though the CG undead have come a long way since 2007's "I Am Legend", it still felt fake, even rubber at moments. Nevertheless, I've heard rumors of Foster attempting a trilogy, and I would absolutely love to see more of the World War Z book played out on the big screen (Yonkers, anybody? That would be sensational.)

Breakdown time. The movie will be scored a grade out of 100%. The grade will be based on
Quality of Film-35%
Concept and Storyline-20%
Performance of Actors-20%
Public Opinion (lifted from iMDB)-10%
Personal Interest-10%
Originality-5%

Quality of Film: 32%
Though including the aforementioned breathtaking scenes and a pretty good amount of on-screen life, the shakiness of the camera got to be a bit much in some cases (or was that just the adrenaline?). I would have liked to see better, for example, when the fuselage of the airplane was ripped apart and undead went soaring through midair. During the scenes in the medical research facility, I enjoyed the use of the security system, but felt like it was distracting at times from what was actually happening before me. Also, once again, I would like to see the undead evolve further visually.

Concept and Storyline: 19%
"World War Z" was a complex book, and we all knew the adaption would be hard. However, Foster pulled off the movie fairly well, introducing the Great Panic, and the early attempts at stopping the virus spread. I would have liked to have seen more origins, though the investigation of Patient Zero was a neat take. Other than that, the first part of the book was covered pretty well.

Performance of Actors: 19%
It's difficult to get children to act well, especially in a horror/action/disaster movie like this. Constance and Rachel (portrayed by Sterling Jerins and Abigal Hargrove, respectively) worked for the roles. We saw a variety of emotions (excitement, relief, fear, anxiety, terror, joy, sheer love for their father, even whimsy in the beginning of the film), we saw two adorable little girls, and we saw a functional family (completed by Pitt and Mireille Enos, and Fabrizio Guido, who plays a young boy named Tomas that acts as part of the family). None of our military men left anything to be desired, and all of our doctors seemed professional. Not perfect, but professional.

Public Opinion: 7%
This one's simple enough to explain. I currently just lift my public opinion off iMDB, and I am not ashamed because I feel like that's the best method (I could look at box office statistics, but I haven't worked out a system yet).

Personal Interest: 10%
Having been introduced to World War Z by my older brother near it's initial release when I was in middle school (or early high school. Somewhere in there), I had long been anticipating a movie based off Max Brooks' work. When I first heard about the project back in 2010, it furthered my interest, and I very closely mulled over every scrap of information I could get on this movie, until the day that I saw it on opening weekend (I couldn't make opening night, but hey I'm only human.)

Originality: 4%
It's not entirely original, which would be preferable usually, but World War Z is an original take on an underrated book. And it's not a remake of Hellraiser (I heard one's in the works. Keep your eyes open. It'll be terrible, for sure.)

With our breakdown in mind, our total score for World War Z is 91%, which I believe is a B+. A valiant attempt, but we'd love to see them do better next time (I'm telling you. Battle of Yonkers.)