*Minor spoiler alerts*
World War Z, 2013
Director: Marc Forster
Writers: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard & Damon Lindelof
Starring: Brad Pitt; Mireille Enos; Daniella Kertesz; Ludi Boeken; Fana Mokoena; Pierfrancesco Favino; Ruth Negga & Peter Capaldi.
So I've had the, uh, pleasure of seeing World War Z twice now, and when I say that I was slightly surprised upon initial viewing it is only because I had such low expectations going into it.
World War Z was a film plagued with production issues from the get-go, including numerous re-shoots, re-writes, arguments between cast and director and the complete re-haul of the finale in order to make a more "acceptable" ending for the Hollywood audience (I can only assume this is a synonym for "cheesy"). When I watch summer Hollywood blockbusters for the first time I always try to take them with a pinch of salt and try not to over-analyse them too much (unless I feel particularly spurned by them, as I have been this summer) but WWZ just made it kinda easy.
The thing that pitfalls WWZ is the same thing which plagued The Walking Dead TV series (Darabont). In a nutshell: the inherent, privileged dominance of the American, middle-class white male and the overwhelming importance of his nuclear family. This is encapsulated nicely in the scene where Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is shot down whilst panicking over the safety of his family by one of the unnamed W.H.O doctors (Pierfrancesco Favino) telling him how he lost his family. Their exchange here is almost identical to one from The Walking Dead wherein Rick (Andrew Lincoln) is reminded that he's the only one who hasn't actually lost anyone from his immediate family and highlights how he uses every other character as a stepping stone to achieve that singular end. This ideology is imposed upon us throughout and involves a family of characters which are difficult to connect with. The white, middle-class family held aloft by the protagonist character is not only shallow and poorly developed, but self-involved and self-important, rending them unlikable as characters and the audience completely unsympathetic to their continued survival.
"Gerry obviously cares about his family. It's just the rest of us who don't, and that's where “World War Z” falls short of what it might have been." (Tribune Review, 2013)
Gerry Lane is our archetypal dominant male character, initially presented as being devoted completely to his family to the point of directionlessness in his professional life. When the shit hits the fan suddenly he is forced to take up his old mantle, because apparently he is the only person alive who can possibly do anything about this situation. Pitt's performance was decent, but nothing to write home about. He's one of those actors who is fantastic under a certain type of direction and in a certain type of film, but this was no Assassination of Jesse James or Fight Club. We have what seems to be the beginning of a partnership set up alongside him in the form of Dr. Fassbach (Elyes Gabel). While Gerry embodies stereotypical physical masculinity, Fassbach is portrayed as a paragon of intelligence, displayed so very eloquently by his analysis of Mother Nature's methods (hint: that was a bit sarcastic). This highly intelligent man, humanities last best hope, then manages to shoot himself in the face five minutes after we're introduced to the character. Gerry then uses what Fassbach told him about Mother Nature in what I term a Dr. House moment with what I can only assume is his vast and as of yet untapped well of bio-medical knowledge. I won't go so far as to call this anti-intellectualism, but the action renders Fassbach just kinda pointless as a character in his own right, reduced to a vessel with five minutes of screentime who only functions to implant a spark in our hero's mind before dying in an act of clumsiness and panic. And it's not just Fassbach, everyone else is presented as inferior to Lane through lack of development and action. We are to understand that he is the important one, the only one who is supposed to be able to fix everything yet leaves leaves a trail of death and destruction in his wake in the process, a price which is paid by every character but Lane.
Gender politics are disappointingly typical and boring here, our main female character (Karin Lane, played by Mireille Enos) firmly relegated to the role of the wife, a maternal figure who remains passive and is always secondary not only to her husband but to the other males. The secondary female lead representation, Daniella Kertesz's Segen, places far to the other end of the feminine representation spectrum, the shaved head and combat uniform reminiscent of Moore's G.I. Jane (Scott, 1997) and she's arguably the most badass character in the film (beating up zombies with a baseball bat after having her hand cut off - very Evil Dead). She would certainly have been my favourite, if not for the complete lack of character development. She's a strong woman yes, but she's really just a cardboard cut out, an archetype who exists in this narrative to react to Lane rather than function as any kind of driving force.
The plot jumps around like a mad thing on drugs, leaping from nonsensical point to point in a cheap and unrewarding manner. Finding the ex-C.I.A.agent who somehow knows everything about what's going on despite the fact he's been locked in a jail cell and who points Lane towards the next destination; the explanation for why Israel (Jerusalem) finished building their wall and the means by which they did it and Lane's sudden bright spark arrival at the biological camouflage idea just a few of the big gaping holes. As is most cinema, action films are allowed a certain amount of leeway with things like filmic reality and the laws of physics, but the Lane and Segen surviving the plane-exploding-crashing, giant piece of metal through the chest scene just pushes the boundaries of believably too far. Even in a film about zombies.
Plot point breadcrumbs are dropped that are never picked back up on, little ones like Capt Speke (James Badge Dale) giving Lane his ring to pass to his mother to the big missed connection in the constant sense of threat to Lane's family. This was displayed throughout the film through the drawn out debates over them being allowed to stay on the boat and Lane's frantic insistences that they are not safe in the refugee camp leading us to a conclusion which is never picked back up upon, leaving us which a soft, unconvincing and wholly dissatisfactory ending
A big criticism which others have made revolves around how far the book diverges from the source material. Brooks himself came out and said that the only thing which his book and the film have in common is the title. What I will point out is the divide between the social commentary contained in the book and the lack of it in the film. Just because Jerry goes to different places, kills different nationalities of zombies, doesn't mean that the text is making any significant comment upon them. You can argue that social ideologies will always fall secondary to mindless entertainment in the Hollywood summer blockbuster, but it's always a terrible shame to see something which started out as such reduced to mere thoughtless audiovisuals.
I didn't hate World War Z, I wasn't expecting much but I did go into it hoping I would enjoy it. I'm a huge horror fan and love zombie films but in the end it's nothing new, nothing which hasn't been done before, it's it's all just bigger budget, faster paced and on a bigger, more superficial scale.
The thing that pitfalls WWZ is the same thing which plagued The Walking Dead TV series (Darabont). In a nutshell: the inherent, privileged dominance of the American, middle-class white male and the overwhelming importance of his nuclear family. This is encapsulated nicely in the scene where Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is shot down whilst panicking over the safety of his family by one of the unnamed W.H.O doctors (Pierfrancesco Favino) telling him how he lost his family. Their exchange here is almost identical to one from The Walking Dead wherein Rick (Andrew Lincoln) is reminded that he's the only one who hasn't actually lost anyone from his immediate family and highlights how he uses every other character as a stepping stone to achieve that singular end. This ideology is imposed upon us throughout and involves a family of characters which are difficult to connect with. The white, middle-class family held aloft by the protagonist character is not only shallow and poorly developed, but self-involved and self-important, rending them unlikable as characters and the audience completely unsympathetic to their continued survival.
"Gerry obviously cares about his family. It's just the rest of us who don't, and that's where “World War Z” falls short of what it might have been." (Tribune Review, 2013)
Gerry Lane is our archetypal dominant male character, initially presented as being devoted completely to his family to the point of directionlessness in his professional life. When the shit hits the fan suddenly he is forced to take up his old mantle, because apparently he is the only person alive who can possibly do anything about this situation. Pitt's performance was decent, but nothing to write home about. He's one of those actors who is fantastic under a certain type of direction and in a certain type of film, but this was no Assassination of Jesse James or Fight Club. We have what seems to be the beginning of a partnership set up alongside him in the form of Dr. Fassbach (Elyes Gabel). While Gerry embodies stereotypical physical masculinity, Fassbach is portrayed as a paragon of intelligence, displayed so very eloquently by his analysis of Mother Nature's methods (hint: that was a bit sarcastic). This highly intelligent man, humanities last best hope, then manages to shoot himself in the face five minutes after we're introduced to the character. Gerry then uses what Fassbach told him about Mother Nature in what I term a Dr. House moment with what I can only assume is his vast and as of yet untapped well of bio-medical knowledge. I won't go so far as to call this anti-intellectualism, but the action renders Fassbach just kinda pointless as a character in his own right, reduced to a vessel with five minutes of screentime who only functions to implant a spark in our hero's mind before dying in an act of clumsiness and panic. And it's not just Fassbach, everyone else is presented as inferior to Lane through lack of development and action. We are to understand that he is the important one, the only one who is supposed to be able to fix everything yet leaves leaves a trail of death and destruction in his wake in the process, a price which is paid by every character but Lane.
Gender politics are disappointingly typical and boring here, our main female character (Karin Lane, played by Mireille Enos) firmly relegated to the role of the wife, a maternal figure who remains passive and is always secondary not only to her husband but to the other males. The secondary female lead representation, Daniella Kertesz's Segen, places far to the other end of the feminine representation spectrum, the shaved head and combat uniform reminiscent of Moore's G.I. Jane (Scott, 1997) and she's arguably the most badass character in the film (beating up zombies with a baseball bat after having her hand cut off - very Evil Dead). She would certainly have been my favourite, if not for the complete lack of character development. She's a strong woman yes, but she's really just a cardboard cut out, an archetype who exists in this narrative to react to Lane rather than function as any kind of driving force.The plot jumps around like a mad thing on drugs, leaping from nonsensical point to point in a cheap and unrewarding manner. Finding the ex-C.I.A.agent who somehow knows everything about what's going on despite the fact he's been locked in a jail cell and who points Lane towards the next destination; the explanation for why Israel (Jerusalem) finished building their wall and the means by which they did it and Lane's sudden bright spark arrival at the biological camouflage idea just a few of the big gaping holes. As is most cinema, action films are allowed a certain amount of leeway with things like filmic reality and the laws of physics, but the Lane and Segen surviving the plane-exploding-crashing, giant piece of metal through the chest scene just pushes the boundaries of believably too far. Even in a film about zombies.
Plot point breadcrumbs are dropped that are never picked back up on, little ones like Capt Speke (James Badge Dale) giving Lane his ring to pass to his mother to the big missed connection in the constant sense of threat to Lane's family. This was displayed throughout the film through the drawn out debates over them being allowed to stay on the boat and Lane's frantic insistences that they are not safe in the refugee camp leading us to a conclusion which is never picked back up upon, leaving us which a soft, unconvincing and wholly dissatisfactory ending
A big criticism which others have made revolves around how far the book diverges from the source material. Brooks himself came out and said that the only thing which his book and the film have in common is the title. What I will point out is the divide between the social commentary contained in the book and the lack of it in the film. Just because Jerry goes to different places, kills different nationalities of zombies, doesn't mean that the text is making any significant comment upon them. You can argue that social ideologies will always fall secondary to mindless entertainment in the Hollywood summer blockbuster, but it's always a terrible shame to see something which started out as such reduced to mere thoughtless audiovisuals.
I didn't hate World War Z, I wasn't expecting much but I did go into it hoping I would enjoy it. I'm a huge horror fan and love zombie films but in the end it's nothing new, nothing which hasn't been done before, it's it's all just bigger budget, faster paced and on a bigger, more superficial scale.
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