Wednesday, October 2, 2013

World War Z(ucchini)

The Z in World War Z, I presume, stands for "zombie", and not, contrary to what you may have found yourself doing throughout much of this film- "zzzz"- the onomatopoeia for snoring, in case the first thing you think of is mosquitoes, in which case I'd advise you to get a pet frog and keep it by your bedside.

I took my time with this 2 hour long movie, watching it over a few days. Here's the plot, in brief: something happens and much of the world gets overrun by zombies.  a UN investigator played by Brad Pitt gets saved by his former boss- some UN bigwig, and ferried to a US aircraft carrier, to be roped in on his plan to find the root cause of the catastrophe.

I'm not a die-hard fan of zombie films- though I do like shows where zombies just happen to play a part, as opposed to shows like World War Z where zombies play a prominent role. I like my shows with more human drama, but there wasn't much time for that in this show- my main impression of it was that Brad Pitt was given the chance to go sightseeing for free (and uninsured). Now, since I'm one lazy reviewer- on to the observation (and quite spoiler laden) section:

1. I finally understand why many reviewers criticized the choice of Brad Pitt for the leading role. He's like an island of calm in that sea of zombies... even when they're trying to bite his head off. He doesn't seem to break a sweat, and has plenty of time to keep his hair tidy...

2. I'm sorry for being a jerk, but it's kinda amazing that BP looks so good but his wife's so frumpy. Then again if they'd gotten someone like Angelina Jolie for the role, it just wouldn't have been very realistic. Oh wait, they're married in real life, you say?

3. ...BP has pretty good aim. What was his pre-war occupation again?

4. Little girl goes missing in the night. First thought: oh no she's dead. Turns out she's hiding in a closet. Bah.

5. BP's gonna have a hard time unwrapping that homemade arm protection!

6. Why does the US Navy bother to keep the UN chief on board? He barely counts as 'essential personnel'. Maybe it's because they just feel better with a civilian bigwig around to give orders (and take responsibility).

7. I find it highly suspicious that a US aircraft carrier had a a program capable of calculating population loss in real-time.

8. It's an immensely important mission they're sending him on, and then give him a big aircraft and a tiny support team. Go figure. What were the others doing, recycling drinking water? Oh hold on- I guess they were busy looting museums.

9. First stop, Korea! I wonder who nuked who?

10. Aww what do you know. Product placement for Iridium- a satellite phone maker. Also, a lesson learned: put your phone on silent mode when cycling through zombie infested territory.

11. So Israel built a giant wall around a city and nobody thought to ask why?

12. Why did the flight stewardess (Lucy, by the way) have to die first?

13. BP gets a Lara Croft moment (gamers will understand).

14. So apparently the navy doesn't care much about promises, or BP was naive in not adding a "in the event of my untimely death" clause to the agreement.

15. Regardless of the scientific validity behind the countermeasure BP came up with, that was a pretty interesting idea- cloaking oneself from the zombies by making yourself sick.

No conclusion for you either, because the movie doesn't really have a conclusion. Fair's fair.

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