And who better to save the world from destruction than Brad Pitt? Heroically and stoically, Pitt's character, an ex-United Nations investigator, risks everything to insure the safety of his family, leading a desperate worldwide search for the source of an epidemic that has overwhelmed the world's armies and rapidly toppled its governments.
World War Z is armed with humanity that is a far cry from films like George Romero's Night of The Living Dead, which scared the living daylights out of audiences, turning humans against flesh-eating and crazed creatures that seemed unstoppable until the rules changed and a bullet to the head soothed the panic. In recent years, after the resurrection of Zombie films like Dawn of the Dead, humour was added to turn the living dead into a clown fest with films like Shaun of the Dead and, most recently, Gangsters versus Zombies (only available on DVD). Then Frank Darabont created the superb television series Walking Dead, in which we empathised with their anguish, and with the release of Warm Bodies, zombie films received a complete makeover with the Romeo and Juliet romance between a living-dead teenager and a girl he falls hopelessly in love with.
Yes, the zombies in World War Z are frightening and terrifying, but infused with an empathetic humanness. In World War Z, total chaos rules. Based on the post-apocalyptic horror novel by Max Brooks called World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, written in first-person, individual accounts from those who experienced it, it captivated the attention of producers Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner, along with everyone at their production company, Plan B Entertainment.
The epical scale and visual splendour of World War Z fell into the hands of director Marc Forster, who has tackled deeply emotional themes in largely character-driven films like Monsters Ball, Finding Neverland , Quantum of Solace and Machine Gun Preacher, turning the zombie-themed horror film into a humanistic story about finding a cure for the deadly virus. Stripping the film off its flesh and leaving it naked, Forster enlisted the help of five screenwriters, turning it into a human drama in which the survival of humanity is at stake and not its demise.
So if you are looking for a zombie film with the living dead in all their gory supremacy, World War Z is not that kind of exploitative shocker, but an intriguing journey into a world ravaged by a virus; an intelligent human drama that shows that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, even if all hope seems lost.
It is interesting to watch Brad Pitt as the hero who goes to the utmost extremes to save the world, in stark contrast to his brutal and superb performance as a psychopath from hell in the riveting crime drama Killing Them Softly (also produced by his company and opening locally on 1 August).
With World War Z, and films that often fall prey to gore and violence, it is refreshing to find that the people matter more than violence and gore. If you are looking for a zombie film with brains, World War Z will provide a wholesome cinematic feast.
"Five years ago, I knew nothing about zombies. Now, I consider myself an expert," recalled Brad Pitt. "Max's book treats the zombie genre as a global pandemic, spreading much like we've witnessed viruses such as SARS travel. What happens when this jumps the fire break? What happens when everything we concern our days with is rendered useless? What happens when power structures and societal norms are obliterated? How will we survive?" Director Marc Forster believes there is a thematic reason for the resurgence of zombie films and many zombie hallmarks resonated with him and drew him to the project.
"I find zombie movies fascinating in that they were popular in the 70s, at a time of uncertainty and upheaval in society. And now when we are again living in a time of change and scepticism, zombies are popular. They're such a great metaphor -representing a sort of unconsciousness and hold a mirror to what's happening in the world. We human beings, as a species, are unconscious to a certain degree and, ultimately, we have to wake up," Forster mused. "It's not just about zombies, it's about a global apocalypse that happens to be spread by zombies," Forster said. "There are a lot of parallels to what we're living through, culturally, that lend themselves to a 'zombie movie', but the great thing about Max's book is that he set it in a realistic time frame and within a reality-based framework. That's what really intrigued me - I wanted to create a movie that feels real, so audiences feel like this could happen, this minute, to any one of us. The general premise is that anything can happen, in any kind of scenario, on any given day. No one is spared, everyone is susceptible. That's the plotline in the movie but it's also real life," Forster said.
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