Marc Forster's WORLD WAR Z

A movie review by Dennis D. McDonald

This is an amazing and exciting film. While the storyline is a bit thin at times the viewer is rushed headlong through a series of harrowing adventures culminating in an intense cat and mouse chase in a secret research facility.

Brad Pitt’s solid, no-nonsense performance holds things together. His character’s ability to come through disastrous circumstances is nothing short of miraculous including a spectacular plane crash that almost matches the astonishing crash in Alex Proyas’ Knowing. But he makes it work.

I’ve grown bored with giant larger-than-life cityscape battles (for example, the last Avengers movie) but the scenes of urban mayhem in World War Z are eye-popping. The Jerusalem scenes and the inter-cutting of birds-eye view with on the ground chase is Oscar worthy just as a demonstration of fluid, dynamic editing.

Sound design is superb. The sound field is emersive, not just in the big set pieces with flying people, debris, and explosions, but in the smaller details of surroundings sounds on and in vehicles (for example, the inside the airliner cabin sounds).

It’s a pleasure to see how international films are becoming. As someone who has done a fair amount of world travel it’s nice to see storylines get around to  places that just aren’t the same old big cities with glass skyscrapers. 

In summary, the balancing of character focus with action and special effects is nearly perfect. Action is kinetic and  the portrayal of people goes way beyond what we usually get in run-of-the-mill disaster epics or comic based films.

Review copyright (c) 2013 by Dennis D. McDonald