World War Z (Dir. Marc Forster, 2013)

Unfortunately I realized that this is a sci-fi, though barely one… so I figured I would review it. To me, it’s just another example of how lazy zombie movies are, and this one doesn’t even have the satisfaction of a good kill. I mean, there is no blood in the movie. That’s right, millions of zombies and not one drop of blood. The director chooses to stray away from the outright bloody horror and go for psychological thriller horror instead, which would be interesting if the rest of the movie were developed better. But like any lazy movie, the answer to the problem is revealed just to move the plot along, and without any build up or forethought.

The movie follows Brad Pitt, an army specialist, trying to save his family and of course, stop the zombies from taking over the world. This becomes a sci-fi story because the zombie effect is a disease, pandemic, spread through the zombie bite. So science is needed to stop ou counter the pandemic. But it is not a typical sci-fi (and that’s not to say it was even trying to be) because there is no moral question to solve or informed misuse of the zombie virus. So, it is mostly a psychological horror with sci-fi elements, and that in itself is not a bad thing.

The movie has some moments, like the mission to retrieve medicine without waking catatonic zombies. But it mostly suffers from too much action, quick cuts, no fun kills, and unbelievable characters. Brad Pitt does not come off as an expert and I would not want to rely on him to save the world. And I could care less about his family as opposed the the millions of other families. They just don’t do anything for me. And I want something to hit me personally in a movie.

Also, the most awesome image from the movie (which I included above) does not happen in the actual movie. Bummer.

Anyway, I’m saying it’s not a very good horror film, it has some psychological thriller moments, and it sucks as a sci-fi. All in all, pretty mediocre, and I had to watch it twice!