Ryan McNeil
In a parallel universe, late-June audiences have been enraptured by a documentary-esque horror film about a worldwide zombie apocalypse. That universe got a film that played like an oral history, and featured full-on battle scenes in India and Yonkers. Audiences of that film got into a spirited debate over what was better – the film, or the Max Brooks book on which it was based.
In this universe though, late-June audiences have been given WORLD WAR Z; a troubled production that plays fast and loose with its source material, and was a production laden with snafus.
WORLD WAR Z is the story of a former UN worker named Terry (Brad Pitt). As he departs on a road trip with his daughters and wife Karin (Mireille Enos), he encounters a crisis. His route out of Philadelphia is impeded by a mass panic, which seems to involve infected people chasing healthy people and spreading a disease by biting them. What he sees looks familiar: the recently dead coming back to walk the earth. Could it really be happening?
Turns out it is.
Terry is contacted by the UN Diplomat he used to work for. His plea is both an imposition and a life line. He offers to pull Terry and his family out of harm’s way, giving them harbour on an aircraft carrier sitting a few hundred miles off America’s shore. The offer is conditional that Terry seek out an answer. The UN doesn’t just want him to find out how kill “zekes” as they’re called, but perhaps also to give a clue towards a cure.
Terry’s search takes him all over the earth. After leaving America he goes to South Korea, and then onward to Jerusalem. It’s there, in Israel, that he meets an Israeli soldier named Segen (Daniella Kertesz) who follows him the rest of the way. It’s around that same time that the situation turns particularly precarious, but Terry understands that the only way hom is to come back with an answer.
WORLD WAR Z works surprisingly well not just for what it, is, but also for what it isn’t.
This is a film that has been sold as a blistering action thrill ride. The film audiences were sold featured scene after scene of CGI zombies posing a threat by creating massive fast-moving walls of humanity (or unhumanity if we must). That film has been made a dozen different ways on a dozen different days. It arrives every four months like clockwork, doesn’t say a thing about the human condition, and provides as much nourishment as a Jumbo Slurpee.
It must have been very tempting for all involved to create WORLD WAR Z using that mould, and considering all of the tales of production drama that surrounded this film as it was being made, that might well have been the idea. Happily though, that idea never made it to fruition.
There is indeed excitement to be experienced as Gerry goes on his search for answers, but those action beats are well-balanced. They seem to know that the terror isn’t only achieved by seeing a swarm of zekes running roughshod through the streets of a major city. No, terror is also achieved just as effectively by seeing the burned out remains of a zeke, and letting the audience realize that it’s fingers still twitch. WORLD WAR Z understands that the terror of the situation is multi-faceted. It understands that the terror comes from seeing people flee, seeing zekes chase, and underlining that these things will be a reality for quite some time.
That hopelessness is where WORLD WAR Z earns its stripes the most, and where it best evokes its source material.
It’s no accident that our hero in the tale is a UN worker, and that his course of action isn’t to drown them, but instead to save us. WORLD WAR Z creates a frightening reality thanks in large part to its plausibility. Such an outbreak isn’t just plausible, but considering how thinly drawn our borders are and how easy it is now to get across the planet, it’s downright possible. We’ve watched as diseases like SARS and H1N1 have struck fear into entire cities that have precious little to do with the virus’ origin. How long until one of these things gets really out of hand?
The film plays upon that, and gives us the sort of hero we would want. In that situation, we wouldn’t want the quarterback who can mow down an entire city block of zombies with an M16. We’d want someone to find us an answer…a cure…a countermeasure that could make survival possible.
However, turning our attention back to the undead (since that will clearly be the draw), the film gets what continues to make zombies so damned freaky. While the idea of a whole mass of them clamouring towards us at breakneck pace is, indeed, nuts, what is even scarier many times is just one. One, well-placed member of the undead, patiently waiting to turn us into a snack. That zombie has all the time in the world, and can intimidate just by continuing to shuffle forward and baring its teeth. Once again this plays on the ad versus the product.
Watching Terry flee a whole mass of zekes is cool, but watching him match wits with a solo biter is truly tense.
Watching these ideas come together in WORLD WAR Z, and likewise mulling over what a lesser film would have done in its position leaves one as satisfied as a hungry zeke in a crowded room. It finds a sweet spot. It never tries to do too much, knowing just how many ladders of undead an audience will want to see in a movie. Likewise, it knows where to place its bets, and that there is a difference between finding answers and destroying a problem.
Whether it arrived there on purpose might never be known, but as the film suggests – many of the best ideas come from turning weaknesses into strengths.
I liked all of those things about it too. There were definitely some things that didn’t get full chances so I don’t know how they might have been done better – David Morse as the CIA traitor describing how North Korea was saving itself. Interesting but ultimately unused info. Or the fact that one daughter had horrible asthma – should that have saved her at some point? Don’t get me wrong, these details made for a richer experience but often left me wondering why bother. But overall I think the balance was good and the tone terrific – scary and hopeless but with a hero who did nothing particularly heroic (except chopping off a hand).
Oh, and saving the world for a bit.
We talked about this through email, but for the sake of the audience, I think that those threads were probably ghosts of what this film started out as…before it ultimately was pulled in a very different direction.
I dig that our hero was someone sent out to look for answers, and not just to slaughter zekes.
It felt like World War Z wasn’t getting a fairshake, much like John Carter did last year. This is my problem with how part of movie reviewing has evolved: everything is about the budget and the stories during production rather than the finished product.
I’m interested in knowing about things that happened outside of the frame of the movie screen…but it’s just an interest.
I read a great book by Walter Murch – a guy who did a lot of behind-the-scenes work on Coppola’s films, including editing. In the book, Murch says that directors should have a lesser say in the editing process because they could be swayed by the preciousness of a scene or a shot.
For instance, there might be a moment in the film that would make for a better overall product if it was cut out. An editor might do that to serve the story, but a director might wrestle with it because they know how hard the scene was to shoot, or how much money it cost.
Reacting to film should be the same way. Forget about everything outside the theatre and just run with what’s being shown. Otherwise, how well would TITANIC and APOCALYPSE NOW have fared?