Post by bender on Oct 27, 2013 14:19:37 GMT 10
A better title would have been Zero Dark Zombie but what are you gonna do.
I've never been a big fan of the Zombie Genre, take the brain eating and the incessant shuffling out of it and what have you got? Your grandparents (you can probably leave the shuffling in and replace the moans of "brains" with "where's my keys"), essentially Zombies are just very, very annoying people. In fact, even if they didn't try and crack your skull open to feed on the goo inside you'd probably still shoot them on general principles (not to mention the amount of time they'd take to transit the ten items or less line at Woolies).
World War Z however takes this genre to a level seen only 12 or 13 times over the last decade and reusing a central plot and storyline only used 5 or 6 times since Charleton Heston first took on the role of the Omega Man back in the 70's. It really is just a remake of that story (seen most recently in the Will Smith's movie I am Legend) but what it does do, and does very well is combine that basic precept with all the ingredients of a Tom Clancy technothriller along with about a squillion bucks worth of special effects and Brad Pitt showing us that it really is common place for uber-intelligent scientists to handle firearms like Jason Bourne. I dunno, maybe the Charleton Heston/Will Smith/Brad Pitt portrayal makes sense, after all, being an expert on Zombies would lead you to recognise that if the Zombies ever get loose being able to handle an Assault Rifle is something handy to have. My big personal revelation in the movie was a realisation that the safest place to be and still hang on to your choppers would be to lock yourself up in a prison. Zombies, whilst rather determined to attack us lack both the manual dexterity to operate power tools or the comprehension of door release systems. Of course you then have to deal with the prospect that you failed to bring a book to whilst away the time for the guys in the white hats to come and rescue you
The ride kicks off in the first three minutes and doesn't let up till the 111th minute. It imparts a surprising feel of realism along with a few surprising observations about humanity. Which country halted the spread of the Zombie Hordes almost instantly? North Korea because as soon as they saw what was happening, every single North Korean was ordered to grab a partner and extract each others teeth so if infected they would not be able to bite others and pass the infection along. In less then 24 hours 23 million North Koreans had saved their country and created a disaster for their corn on the cob industries whilst America loses most of their largest cities in just a few hours due in large part to the Zombies ability to form human (sorry, the living dead) pyramids allowing them to surmount nearly any obstacle (including Israel's much vaunted "wall" which rather luckily was completed just 1 week before the Zombies first appeared. Apparently Tony Abbott's promise to turn back the Zombies was about as fulfillable as his pledge to turn back the boats. Incidently, the precept that the movie operates under Australia would indeed be safe unless an aircraft full of Zombie passengers was allowed to land here instead of being shot down over New Zealand airspace allowing them to join the Orks in a final battle for middle earth
Unfortunately neither the Cranberries "Zombie" or the Hooters "All you Zombies" get any airplay during the movie, nor is there a Zombie version of "The Batchelor" rolled out by an enterprising TV exec so at least the living still have something to live for.
I give it four and a half moans of brains out of a possible 5.
I've never been a big fan of the Zombie Genre, take the brain eating and the incessant shuffling out of it and what have you got? Your grandparents (you can probably leave the shuffling in and replace the moans of "brains" with "where's my keys"), essentially Zombies are just very, very annoying people. In fact, even if they didn't try and crack your skull open to feed on the goo inside you'd probably still shoot them on general principles (not to mention the amount of time they'd take to transit the ten items or less line at Woolies).
World War Z however takes this genre to a level seen only 12 or 13 times over the last decade and reusing a central plot and storyline only used 5 or 6 times since Charleton Heston first took on the role of the Omega Man back in the 70's. It really is just a remake of that story (seen most recently in the Will Smith's movie I am Legend) but what it does do, and does very well is combine that basic precept with all the ingredients of a Tom Clancy technothriller along with about a squillion bucks worth of special effects and Brad Pitt showing us that it really is common place for uber-intelligent scientists to handle firearms like Jason Bourne. I dunno, maybe the Charleton Heston/Will Smith/Brad Pitt portrayal makes sense, after all, being an expert on Zombies would lead you to recognise that if the Zombies ever get loose being able to handle an Assault Rifle is something handy to have. My big personal revelation in the movie was a realisation that the safest place to be and still hang on to your choppers would be to lock yourself up in a prison. Zombies, whilst rather determined to attack us lack both the manual dexterity to operate power tools or the comprehension of door release systems. Of course you then have to deal with the prospect that you failed to bring a book to whilst away the time for the guys in the white hats to come and rescue you
The ride kicks off in the first three minutes and doesn't let up till the 111th minute. It imparts a surprising feel of realism along with a few surprising observations about humanity. Which country halted the spread of the Zombie Hordes almost instantly? North Korea because as soon as they saw what was happening, every single North Korean was ordered to grab a partner and extract each others teeth so if infected they would not be able to bite others and pass the infection along. In less then 24 hours 23 million North Koreans had saved their country and created a disaster for their corn on the cob industries whilst America loses most of their largest cities in just a few hours due in large part to the Zombies ability to form human (sorry, the living dead) pyramids allowing them to surmount nearly any obstacle (including Israel's much vaunted "wall" which rather luckily was completed just 1 week before the Zombies first appeared. Apparently Tony Abbott's promise to turn back the Zombies was about as fulfillable as his pledge to turn back the boats. Incidently, the precept that the movie operates under Australia would indeed be safe unless an aircraft full of Zombie passengers was allowed to land here instead of being shot down over New Zealand airspace allowing them to join the Orks in a final battle for middle earth
Unfortunately neither the Cranberries "Zombie" or the Hooters "All you Zombies" get any airplay during the movie, nor is there a Zombie version of "The Batchelor" rolled out by an enterprising TV exec so at least the living still have something to live for.
I give it four and a half moans of brains out of a possible 5.