Post by jipper on Jun 24, 2013 0:55:38 GMT -5
World War Z (2013)
6 of 10
***NO Spoilers***
6 of 10
***NO Spoilers***
Just so anyone reading knows, I won't give away any spoilers talking about specifics of the movie. This will be just a generalized review.
Where do I start. I'm a long time zombie fan. Every since I discovered the original Romero zombie films, Night, Day and Dawn. I don't believe any hardcore Romero zombie fan will be satisfied with World War Z as a zombie movie. Even newer, Walking Dead zombie fans may have issues with this movie. It's definitely not your traditional zombie movie. While this movie and tradional zombies flicks are both about survival, as a zombie movie should be. This one takes more of an offensive stance while most zombie movies are people on the defense.
In order to make your own judgement on World War Z, let me give you some of my personal zombie likes and dislikes and you can compare my opinions to your own. The original Romero 3 are my absolute favorite. I enjoyed the Savini Night of the Living dead remake as well as the Dawn of the Dead remake. The Day of the Dead remake was even watchable. I enjoyed 28 Days later. 28 Weeks later wasn't very good but still wasn't bad. Shaun of the Dead was just awesome. While I watch the Walking Dead every week and enjoy it, I'm not the die hard fan like most. It's very good but most people are crazier about it than me. I enjoyed Zombieland a lot, Dead Snow was good, as well as Fido and as you are able to see in my previous reviews, I enjoyed Planet Terror, even though it's not as a zombie movie. I even give my recommendation for the Creature from the Pink Lagoon.
A lot of older zombie movies and much of the foreign stuff many die hard zombie fans love, I have not seen.
As for the movies I haven't liked, the newer Romero zombie movies have all been bad that I've seen. This includes Land of the Dead. Eventually I stopped watching them so I haven't seen everything. I don't think a Return of the Living Dead has been made that I've enjoyed. Even if they are cheesy classics. The Resident Evil movies were utter sh!t. All of the low budget zombie films I've tried (there are many but no names are coming to me) haven't been enjoyable and for the most part I don't finish them.
World War Z felt more like an apocalyptic movie along the lines of Independance Day, I am Legend or the Day after Tomorrow than it felt like a zombie film. I actually felt it was similar to the movie Outbreak from 1995. Though I enjoyed Outbreak a little better. I will give the film this though. Most zombie movies revolve around a small group of people. We occasionally see glimpses on television or from a radio broadcast that give us an idea that the thing is global. For the most part however we don't get to see the global aspect of things. World War Z is the global aspect of things.
Some big issues I had with the film was what I'll call the ridiculousness. (mini-spoiler) For example, zombies fall hundreds of feet that would clearly break every bone in their body and they get up and move around with full functionality. These zombies are beyond the 'fast' zombies from 28 Days Later and the Dawn remake. They're verging on super zombies. Another big issue would be the amount of zombies. I believe they created thousands upon thousands simply because they could do that via CGI. It was overkill to say the least. The CGI zombies looked obviously like CGI but for the most part they didn't get close enough for the bad CGI to bother me.
The good side of things is that there was no horrible acting jobs that tend to be my sticking point in the lower budget crap zombie films that I shut off. While I thought some of the zombie make-up effects were over the top, it was intentional. Even though I didn't agree with it, I also thought it looked good. I mean, they shouldn't have done it so over the top but I was still able to appreciate how good it looked. Lastly, while the movie is more global, it does have several different times when people get isolated with a more traditional zombie feel.
I posted all the negatives about the movies. Honestly if it weren't a zombie film, I probably would have been a lot more positive. However it's still a slightly above average movie. If you think you'll like it, it is a big budget movie that you'll want to see in theaters. If you're on the fence like I was, I recommend waiting for BluRay. If you're an old school Romero fan who thinks this movie might p!$$ you off, it probably will.