Somewhere along the line Marc Forster has stopped begging for an Academy Award and decided to become the next Roland Emmerich. And with his latest film World War Z, Forster has shown the world that he can't even pull that off. In short, World War Z is a mediocre film with a bland script and poorly-directed action sequences. In the grand Roland Emmerich tradition it has absolutely nothing new to do with the well-worn subjectmatter, other than making everything as big as possible. The story concerns a world wide epidemic of "zombies" and of course only Brad Pitt can save the day. This is another trope borrowed from the Emmerich school of filmmaking, a worldwide disaster where the fate of humanity rests on the shoulders of one white American family. Now being white and American I have to say that we might not be the ideal choice for world-saving alpha males, but that is a topic for a different time.
In WWZ Forster tries to focus on the large action set pieces, forgoing the gory up-close details so they can maintain a PG-13 rating to wring every dollar out of the moviegoing public's collective wallet. Now these set pieces do look nice, and some give a wonderful sense of grandeur and spectacle but when the smaller stuff is happening the action is indecipherable. Yes, Forster hasn't learned to direct action since that shit fest Quantum of Solace and the film's action sequences mostly have the same problems. Forster's devotion to shaking the camera as much as possible mixed with the very quick editing creates incomprehensible fight scenes where you can mostly only tell where Brad Pitt is by his marvelous mullet.
But this isn't to say that WWZ is terrible, because it isn't. The movie is just horribly forgettable. Forgettable action, forgettable story, and very forgettable characters. The characters are perhaps the zenith of World War Z's utter blandness. The main characters are essentially nonentities, with hardly a character trait to share between them. And the supporting characters mostly just show up to have a single monologue and then die, often so abruptly that it is comedic. When the big action set pieces aren't around and the characters have to carry the story, the film putters out until the next big action scene which, sadly, frequently happens. The film is structured like a video game, as Brad Pitt travels to various places, each time fighting zombies until the film reaches a climax that feels half-assed at best and mostly consists of [Spoilers] Brad Pitt drinking a Pepsi.
The film is as I mentioned a PG-13 and carries none of the gore that would bring in most horror fans. Which could have been handled better had the script simply not had gory moments. But the film has many moments of classic horror movie gore in it only when it happens the camera pulls away like an overbearing mother sheltering her child's eyes. Hands are cut off, people are bitten, and people are shot. But we see none of it, just more shots of Brad Pitt's mullet, which I am pretty sure was credited with a supporting role.
So all this leads me to wonder who this movie is "for". Well it certainly isn't for the highbrow film snobs who are Forester's typical target audience. The action is so poorly directed that I would be ashamed to show this to your typical action junkie. And there is little to no gore for the horror aficionados. So my conclusion is that this movie is for no one. In an attempt to make back the large production cost they have churned out a movie sure not to offend the smallest child or the contentious grandmother. The final product being a movie so innocuous that the only thing memorable about it is its sheer banality. But that seems to be what makes the most money in Hollywood. I guess it's just economics really. It's easier to make money if your film is "for everyone," but I would like to think that most people's favorite movies are "not for everyone" - I mean, what kind of person has a favorite movie that is some factory-line produced film without any heart in it? Well okay, I know a few of those people, but the more important question is, who likes those people?
-SP McDonald
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