When people in “World War Z” get bitten and turn into rabid undead freaks, the conversion happens frighteningly quickly, without a lot of fuss. In Philadelphia, where Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), his wife (Mireille Enos) and their two daughters (Sterling Jerins and Abigail Hargrove) are driving from their suburban home toward the center of town, we’re plunged into the first disquieting evidence of the zombie virus, the warning signs of breakdown: giant traffic jams, a street-corner explosion, cops whizzing by, and, finally, a zombie - or is it just an angry, desperate civilian? - crashing up against the windshield.īrad Pitt: From ‘Dallas’ to ‘World War Z’ The film opens with music that’s meant to remind you of Tubular Bells, the chilling theme music from “The Exorcist,” and that’s followed by a collage of actual TV news snippets cleverly edited together to suggest a world already tilting toward the abyss. It’s thrillingly controlled, and it builds in impact. We turn that fear into entertainment.“World War Z” is epically scaled, but it’s not a messy, noisy, CGI-bogus, throw-everything-at-the-audience sort of blockbuster. We’re fictionalizing everybody’s anxieties with zombies, and these other catastrophes on film. “We’re living in a time where there is a lot of fear out there - failing economies, job uncertainties, terrorists, an environmental future that seems very uncertain. He’s selling “World War Z” as a “family story” whose backdrop is “this epic, end of the world tale.” Because Forster is fully aware of that one last z-word that films such as “This is The End,” “World War Z,” “Rapture Palooza” and “The World’s End” tap into - the zeitgeist. Zombies, piling up against a wall so that others can climb over that to clear the wall.” That image stuck with me, and when I signed up to do this movie, I realized this would be the one place I have the chance to use that image, to translate it to cinema. “I loved watching the ants crawling all over each other to be able to climb up over something to get at something else. “As a kid, we had a landfill behind our house,” Forster, 43, recalls. What barriers can protect us from zombies? Walls? Moats? Concertina wire? How fast do they move? What limitations of theirs can be exploited? As many critics are noticing, “World War Z” is “surprisingly smart” and “imaginative” (Variety) in dealing with those. Romero (“Night of the Living Dead”) invented the genre, zombie movies present storytellers with a set of problems. And when they show up, the rest of us have to put aside our differences, don’t we?”Įver since George A. “Zombies have always been a great metaphor for other things - trends in society, outcasts. It’s more academic than your typical end of the world horror film. The geopolitical backdrop gives it substance. “‘World War Z’ has a lot to say on a socio-political level. But the director of “Machine Gun Preacher” searches for projects with a message. I think that will set us apart among the big summer movies.”įorster isn’t shy about tackling genre pictures or potential blockbusters. So we went for something very different, more intense, I think. I wanted something more like a haunted house type of storytelling ending. It would work much better with something quieter.’ The Israel story beat, the movie’s battle set there, was so big that I didn’t want to try and top it. “I said, ‘Look, I think we’ve already had a big battle. ” The original ending was like a lot of blockbusters, a big fight with lots of explosions - a final battle. “We changed the ending,” he says of the release delay. And Forster, the German-Swiss filmmaker who directed “Monster’s Ball”, “Quantum of Solace” and “Stranger than Fiction”, can breathe a little easier, now. “A more apt title would be World War Zzzzz” a wag wisecracked for the website, This is London.īut waves of other reviews soon drowned out the naysayers. The earliest notices - reviews from the UK - further dampened expectations. But the rest of film fandom? Distracted by “Iron Man,” “Star Trek” and the “Man of Steel.” Among the summer blockbusters, “World War Z” might have zombie movie fanatics in a tizzy, eagerly awaiting the adaptation of Max Brooks’ best-selling novel about a worldwide zombie contagion. “Sometimes, it’s not a bad thing for people to walk in with low expectations.” Delayed, pulled from the release schedule last fall for re shoots, the phrase “troubled production” has latched itself onto this Brad Pitt zombie movie. For much of its production life, director Marc Forster’s film of “World War Z” has had another z-sound hanging over it - buzz.
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