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Directed by
| Marc Forster |
|---|---|
Produced by
| Brad Pitt Dede Gardner Jeremy Kleiner Ian Bryce |
Screenplay by
| Matthew Michael Carnahan Drew Goddard Damon Lindelof |
Story by
| Matthew Michael Carnahan J. Michael Straczynski |
Based on
| World War Z by Max Brooks |
Starring
| Brad Pitt Mireille Enos James Badge Dale Matthew Fox |
World War Z is a 2013 British-American apocalyptic film directed by Marc Forster. The screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan is based on the 2006 novel of the same nameby Max Brooks. The film stars Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator who must travel the world to find a way to stop a zombie-like pandemic.
Pitt's Plan B Entertainment secured the film rights in 2007 and Forster was approached to direct. In 2009, Carnahan was hired to rewrite the script to the film. Filming began in July 2011 in Malta on an estimated $125 million budget, before moving to Glasgow in August 2011 and Budapest in October 2011. Originally set for a December 2012 release, the production suffered some setbacks. In June 2012, the film's release date was pushed back and the crew returned to Budapest for seven weeks of additional shooting. Damon Lindelof was hired to rewrite the third act, but did not have the time to finish the script and Drew Goddard was hired to rewrite it. The reshoots took place between September and October 2012.
World War Z premiered in London on June 2, 2013, and was chosen to open the 35th Moscow International Film Festival. The film was released on June 21, 2013, in the United States in 2D and RealD 3D. The film was a commercial success, grossing over $540 million on a $190 million budget and receiving generally positive reviews. Furthermore, the video release of this film was on September 17th, 2013 by Paramount Home Video, A sequel was cancelled during the film's troubled filming process, but is now in development once again.
PLOT
Former UN employee Gerry Lane, his wife Karin and their two daughters are in heavy Philadelphia traffic when the city is attacked by zombies. As chaos spreads, the Lanes escape to Newark, New Jersey and take refuge in an apartment, home to a couple with a young son, Tommy. UN Deputy Secretary-General Thierry Umutoni—an old friend of Gerry's—sends a helicopter that extracts the Lanes and Tommy to a U.S. Navy vessel in the Atlantic where scientists and military personnel are analyzing the worldwide outbreaks. Dr. Andrew Fassbach posits that the plague is a virus, and that development of a vaccine depends on finding the origin. Gerry reluctantly agrees to help Fassbach find the outbreak's source after it is made clear that he and his family will be removed from the ship if he does not.
Gerry and Fassbach fly to Camp Humphreys, a military base in South Korea, where they are attacked on arrival by zombies. Turning to re-enter the aircraft, Fassbach slips, falls and accidentally discharges his gun, killing himself. After being rescued by the base's surviving personnel, led by Captain Speke, Gerry learns that the infection was introduced to the base by its doctor, who was ultimately incinerated by a soldier with a lame leg whom the infected ignored. A former CIA operative, imprisoned at the base, tells Gerry to go to Jerusalem, where he says a safe zone has been maintained by the Israeli Mossad since before the outbreak's official acknowledgement. As Gerry and his team bike back to their aircraft, zombies attack, kill several soldiers and infect Captain Speke, who commits suicide to prevent himself from turning. Gerry and his pilot escape.
In Jerusalem, Gerry meets Mossad chief Jurgen Warmbrunn, who explains that months earlier, the Mossad had intercepted an Indian military message claiming that Indian troops were fighting the rakshasa, or the "undead". Israel had thereupon quarantined Jerusalem, erecting huge walls around it. Just as Jurgen shows Gerry that Israel is allowing survivors to take refuge in the city, loud celebratory singing from refugees prompts zombies to scale the walls and attack. Jurgen orders some Israeli soldiers to escort Gerry back to his plane. On the way, Gerry notices zombies ignoring a sick old man and an emaciated boy. Soon after, one of Gerry's escorts, a soldier who identifies herself only as "Segen", is bitten on the hand, which Gerry quickly amputates to stop her turning. Gerry and Segen escape on a commercial airliner as Israel is overrun.
Gerry contacts Thierry, and the airliner is diverted to a World Health Organization (WHO) facility in Wales. When a stowaway zombie attacks in mid-air, Gerry uses a grenade to blow the infected out of the aircraft, but this also causes the plane to crash. Gerry is injured, but both he and Segen survive. They proceed to the WHO facility, where Gerry loses consciousness for three days, then explains to the remaining WHO staff a theory he has, based on the people he has seen the zombies ignore: the infected do not bite the seriously injured or terminally ill, since they would be unsuitable hosts for viral reproduction. He suggests that they test this by deliberately infecting somebody with one of the facility's pathogens, but these are in a wing already overrun by zombies. Gerry, Segen and the lead WHO doctor go to get a pathogen, but are separated on the way; Gerry continues to the pathogen vault while Segen and the doctor return to the main building. A zombie corners Gerry inside the vault, prompting him to inject himself with a deadly, but treatable, virus and open the vault, thereby testing his theory. The zombie ignores him, as do those he encounters while returning to the main wing. Everybody rejoices at Gerry's success, and he is successfully inoculated against the virus.
Gerry and his family are reunited in a safe zone at Freeport, Nova Scotia. A "vaccine", derived from deadly pathogens, is developed and issued to troops battling the infected, acting as a kind of camouflage. The vaccine also helps survivors to reach quarantine zones. Human offensives begin against the zombies, and hope is restored. "This isn't the end," Gerry comments, "Not even close. Our war has just begun."
TRAILER
REVIEW
When the zombie movie as we know it first twitched into life, it was a niche concern, with budgets to match. An invasion of a farmhouse was fine, a city block just about doable, but anything bigger had to be relayed via a flickering TV or solemn radio transmission. Flash forward several decades and you have World War Z: a huge-budget summer release, starring one of Hollywood's biggest and handsomest names, that sets out to actually show a worldwide assault by the undead. The result is slick, tense and hangs together fine, far from the disaster many predicted during its tortured birthing. But it's also just a little bit bland and generic. In particular, horror fans jonesing for grand-scale carnage are unlikely to come away entirely satisfied.
The bleak book from which it takes its name and loose outline, by Max ‘son of Mel’ Brooks, zips all over the globe, looking at the horror from a range of perspectives. It has smart things to say about geo-politics. It also has some astounding images, like a submarine being overwhelmed by zombies on an ocean floor, or the US army’s Alamo-like stand against millions of the ghouls. Almost none of this has made it into the film. Instead, we travel around with Gerry (Brad Pitt), a family man who once ran UN operations into countries where normal mortals wouldn't survive a night. With military infrastructures in shambles and entire nations gone radio-silent, he alone must trace the source of the outbreak. That’s right — the fate of humanity lies in the hands of a man called Gerry.
World War Z’s opening salvo is terrific. Apocalyptic blockbusters usually take a while to crank up and tease what's coming, but this launches right into it without a single winking R.E.M. song. By the time you’re munching your first fistful of popcorn, an entire city (Philadelphia) is being overrun. Director Marc Forster plays the sequence beautifully, keeping the monsters virtually unseen and making the chaos unnerving in itself. It’s strong stuff. But it also sets the tone for what to expect in terms of gore, or lack of it. This is a movie in which millions of people die, but barely a drop of blood is seen. As for guts, forget it: these zombies — and the word is used regularly — don’t seem to have an appetite.
They're still scary, though, particularly when they’re swarming across the screen like pissed-off army ants. Simon Pegg and other zombie purists are likely to tut up a storm: these reanimated corpses don’t just run, but leap, clamber and power-slide about with inhuman gusto. It’s undeniably effective to see thousands of them descend upon their prey, all the while screeching like velociraptors and chomping their teeth. (The effects are handled well, though the editing is sometimes over-frenetic.) The shame is that, whether for budgetary reasons or to try to keep things more character-based, this type of vast-scale action is limited to a single set-piece, during the film’s mid-point Israel segment. Considering the movie’s title, it would have been nice to see a lot more war.
Instead, the majority of the run-time sees Pitt and an assortment of sidekicks facing down “Zeke” in a familiar array of bunkers, apartment blocks and labs. While it’s all handled with skill and the actors sell the fear, it feels like a slight gyp, especially when the climax of the movie — which was reshot at great expense — is on a smaller scale than the third act of Shaun Of The Dead. There is also more than one slap-your-forehead moment, like the bit where Gerry, a highly trained covert operative, forgets to put his phone on silent while traversing an infected zone. Silly Gerry.
The whole thing feels like a studio dipping its toe in the water: the wrapping-up line, “This isn’t the end... not even close,” makes it clear that there are plans ahoy for further instalments, should there be public appetite. In the meantime, this just about succeeds on its own merits. Few of the characters are memorable (Mireille Enos has the snooziest part as Mrs. Lane, and Matthew Fox barely registers as a paratrooper), but there’s imagery here that’s genuinely horrifying — not least a plane-set sequence which proves that people who fly economy really do suffer the most.
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