"World War Z" has had a rough time just making it to the cinemas this summer. Extensive reshoots and a third act re-write by Damon Lindelof ("Lost") as well as a cadre of other writers caused many to sell this one off as a hopeless endeavor.
The title also confused and split audiences on both sides of the Atlantic on whether it's actually pronounced "World War Zee" or " World War Zed."
So "World War Zee" has arrived in (American) theaters, and it's just the kind of palette cleanser one would need from all the eardrum thumping blockbusters so far.
Brad Pitt ("Moneyball") plays UN special investigator Gerry Lane, who is tasked with finding out the source of a deadly pandemic causing the dead to come back to life.
In the course of his travels he ends up in Philadelphia, South Korea, Jerusalem and Wales trying to find a vaccine to counteract the zombification of the human race.
Under Marc Forster's ("Quantum of Solace") direction, the film look effortless despite reports of an out-of-control $200 million budget.
Cinematographer Ben Seresin ("Unstoppable") chose to shoot the film with a jaundiced lens to add a grand sense of paranoia and dread akin to Steven Soderbergh's "Contagion."
The movie is a star-led production, although Pitt's acting is subtle, terse and understated.
But Pitt's presence is clearly meant to achieve a galvanizing effect and it works. Though it's the films two female leads, Mireille Enos ("The Killing") as Karin Lane and Daniella Kertesz ("After Death") as Segen that imbue the film with the an emotional core.
Forster has an eye for filming the destruction of cities but paces the film briskly, eventually whittling down to a classic construction of the zombie scenario within the cloistered hallways of a W.H.O medical clinic by way of George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead."
Forster also gives those human moments an extra emotional punch by training the camera on the small moments of an embrace instead of reveling in the civil unrest. It helps that both the script and production design are also handled very well.
Even when he does focus on those moments of action, they are filled with a birds-eye view spectacle. A suspenseful airplane zombie takeover or a sequence involving Jerusalem being overrun by towering hordes of menacing zombies. They're all filmed capably to convey a sense of encroaching, gut-mangling anxiety. The PG-13 rating allows for more creative avenues than retreading shots of some undead guys chewing on innards.
Those sequences are exciting, but there's always an elegiac resonance attached to those scenes. Disaster isn't played for entertainment's sake, and there is the real sense of consequence across the globe. Most importantly, it acknowledges the blunted tragedy of losing life on that grand a scale.
"World War Z" takes the concept of zombies and makes them mindless, glassy-eyed pathogen propagators, giving extra credence to their powers of dashing speed. Think "28 Days Later" zombies on bath salts.
But however earnest the film gets, the whole affair doesn't become completely self-serious. "World War Z" knows when to give a moment of levity, which allows itself the respect of affability.
It's a horror movie for beginners. Bloodless, but fun. A pandemic movie disguised as a zombie film.
Even with all sorts of bleak apocalypses and directors outdoing each other on the world-level destruction events, "World War Z" has a grubby but comfortable grace while not being overly philosophically ruminative.
It's baffling but pleasantly surprising that a movie plagued with such troubling production circumstances turned out to be a solid film about compassion at the end of the civilization. "World War Z" is un-romantic about its intent. It's straightforward, clear and tonally sound. And just plain effective filmmaking.
Amidst all the city-smashing films, "World War Z" tests the grand experiment of the human condition. Albeit, with more than just a bite.
dkahen-kashi@theeagleonline.com
