The early reviews for World War ZÂ are mixed, as in somewhere between fair and disappointing. The film had its London premiere this past weekend, and while the initial big news was Angelina Jolie’s first night out since she had a pre-emptive double mastectomy, considering that the movie cost nearly $200 million, was the subject of rumours concerning friction between star and director and was bumped from its prestigious holiday release date, the big news should be whether or not it’s any good.
So, on that note, let’s see what the critics are saying about the film.
Let’s start with the good news from IGN, whose review is mostly of the positive variety.
But World War Z, inspired by if not really based on the popular book by Max Brooks, isn’t just a zombie movie. And this is where that line about the president comes in: The film, which Pitt also produced, is designed to be less a horror movie than it is a globe-spanning, international thriller, albeit one with zombies in it. This isn’t Rick and Shane camping in the woods. Nah, Pitt’s character, Gerry Lane, jets around the world — well, what’s left of it — in search of an answer to how to stop the plague before it’s too late! You could say this is the epic of zombie films… and it works for the most part.
From Total Film, the critic there suggests that while the film looks good, what it lacks, oddly enough, is soul.
Forster’s zombies aren’t really zombies at all, and they often look more like an angry football crowd on a Saturday night – but there’s never been a more impressive horde of flesh-eaters on the big screen. Sprinting, gnashing, leaping and head-butting their way through civilization in a swarm of thousands, the Zombie apocalypse finally looks big enough to be believable. Globetrotting from one epic set-piece to the next, WWZ is at its best when the screen is filled – with CG hordes pouring through crowded streets, piling high at city walls and overrunning helicopters like ants.
As we segue into less positive reviews, Digital Spy says that the film was enjoyable enough, but if you walk in expecting your normal, gory zombie picture, then you should prepare to be disappointed.
Diehard zombie fans may find there’s not enough gore, no lingering close-ups of the undead feasting on entrails, but grossness is replaced by a richly thick atmosphere of constant threat. The hellish tableaux of cityscapes where the masses are made to look like colonies of bacteria blooming in a petri dish are truly horrifying, and Gerry is always an inch away from being swallowed up in it.
And speaking of disappointment, the Telegraph says that if you’re a fan of Max Brooks’ original novel, then you may have a hard time getting into the movie it’s based on.
Brooks’s novel was a thinly-veiled parable about American foreign policy and post-millennial anxiety, told from several points of view: in fact, it had much in common with Steven Soderbergh’s terrific 2011 medical thriller Contagion. Marc Forster’s film junks the satire and multiple perspectives, and instead recasts the story as an uncomplicated globe-trotting thriller. On one side we have Lane and a roster of temporary sidekicks, and on the other, an inexhaustible supply of the living dead.
World War Z hits theatres everywhere on June 21st, 2013. Are you looking forward to seeing it? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Screen Rant
