World War Z

Still have yet to read the book but from what I have heard the movie looks nothing like the book...so ya I feel like it might just be a regular zombie flick. Either way I'm a zombie fan so I will probably see it.
 
Just came across this thread. I've a weakness for zombie movies too and have been waiting a long time to see WWZ. And I'm still waiting... Marc Forster's a good director though, so I can't imagine he'll make a poor film. I expect the sheer scale to be the thing with this movie - think thousands of zombies.

Timing may be against the film though, as I get the feeling people are reaching saturation point with all things zombie. That being said, Season 3 of Walking Dead is certainly still keeping things interesting...

By coincidence, some of World War Z was shot on the island of Malta. I happened to be on holiday there during the production. I was strolling up to visit Fort St. Elmo in Valletta when I started passing Panavision trucks and the like. Before I knew it, I was watching them shoot exterior scenes with extras dressed as soldiers and civilians in what looked like orthodox Jewish garb. Looked good. Then security noticed me and I was asked to move along. I ambled away, zombie-like.

Looking forward to seeing the finished film.
 
I think the new zombie film pappas is in looks a bit better to me, I like the whole comedy spin they went with. I am a fan of pitt but this looks like anyother cgi hollywood cliche. Apparently the film was shot, but was so bad, paramount pushed it back to reshoot it, or at least part of it. I have a feeling it will bomb, people are tiring of zombie films. Walking dead is the only thing keeping people interested in zombie films.
 
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I am not looking foward to this movie at all. I hate that they are using the Dawn of the Dead fast moving zombies those ones aren't intersting or scary. I have read a littlt of the book and the author decribes them as slow moveing, besides that this looks just like every zombie movie that has come out all ready. The book is actually intersing becasue its journial entires from the humans that were alive during the war on Zombies. Also the fact that this looks like its filled with CGI is why I am going to stay away from this movie. The Walking Dead uses both Make-up and Computer design to create their zombies why can't this one?
 
I am not going to. Only way I would ever see it is if it was on TV or Netfilx won't spend anything on this movie.
 
Can't wait to check it out. Warm Bodies was really good, hope this one will be too in an entirely different way.
 
Saw a trailer for the first time last night. Ugh. Some horrific-looking CGI.

I love me some zombies, but man, this may be a pass.
 
This doesn't look very very good. Outside of already knowing what the movie is about, you can't even really tell from the trailer that those are zombies. It just looks like a crowd of angry people chasing other people around.
 
A second trailer for WWZ. I'm thinking it's not going to do much to assuage any fears re: quality of the movie... Oh well, I'm still going to pay my money and go along to see it on release...

 
You know something is wrong when the studio seems to be running away from the concept of their own movie.
 
So, WWZ is finally released. I caught it at the local multiplex last night and it was.... okay-ish. It's not the total dud many of us feared it might be but it's also not the last word in zombie apocalypse movies either.


On the plus side, it must be the most concise summer blockbuster ever made. The 116mins rush by and are entertaining, though you soon find yourself at the anti-climactic final sequences wondering, "Oh, was that it?". The film has moments of genuine tension throughout and the central perfomance by Pitt is solid and likeable. Daniella Kertesz is excellent playing Segen, an Israeli soldier, though her character is criminally underused in the latter scenes of the film. Irish/Ethiopian actress Ruth Negga is quite good too in a small supporting role as a W.H.O. doctor with a pronounced Dub accent.


What didn't work, somewhat disastrously for a zombie movie, were the zombies. Those huge scale wide shots featuring thousands of the undead, much anticipated by genre fan-boys like myself, were simply spoiled by unconvincing cgi. The design for the non-cgi creatures wasn't especially creative or frightening either. The action was tame overall and while I'm not a gore fan, this has to be the most bloodless zombie film ever made. ****SPOILERS FOLLOW***** The plane crash and subsequent climactic sequences at the Cardiff medical installation were disappointing. The plane crash was just a jeopardy too far for me and it needlessly tested 'realism' that Pitt's and Kertesz's characters would be able to pick themselves up with their injuries and stroll off into the Welsh countryside in search of the medical lab. Once they reach the lab, the film shrinks in scale to such a extent that it becomes, for all intents and purposes, a somewhat toothless big screen cousin of a Walking Dead episode.


Anyway, despite everything, I still maintain that Marc Forster is a good director and is incapable of making a truly bad film. And this film isn't truly bad at all. It's okay-ish, which might just be damning it with faint praise.
 
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I caught WWZ the other day and was pleasantly surprised. With the drama surrounding the production I wasn't expecting much but some friends that had seen it liked it so I was cautiously optimistic. I ended up enjoying the film a lot and, for once, was in with a very good audience. I agree that Daniella Kertesz was underused and Pitt's character couldn't seem to fathom that he wasn't the only one w/a family in jeopardy, but overall the short comings of the film fell into 'all films have flaws' category in that nothing was really gratuitous, IMO. I think the movie did a good job making the crisis feel big/global w/o losing focus on the protagonist. I've seen way more zombie movies than I care to admit and WWZ feels similar in tone to 28 Days Later (which is one of my favorites).




****SPOILERS FOLLOW*****

I thought beers in the apartment (all 5 sec of screen time it took up) was a nice gesture of humanity during a crisis. They had to hunker down overnight to wait for the chopper anyway so why not take a beer offered by the total strangers that were kind enough to let you hide out in their home?
 
This was kind of like the 2012 of Zombie movies, not in terms of quality but in terms of the absurd scale of the thing. It's just one damn thing after the other and while the hurtling pace works for a while, it sacrifices character depth in the process and eventually runs out of gas. The "climax" doesn't really feel like one. It's an effective, small scale set piece that is suspenseful enough on its own terms and necessary for the story, but considering what preceded it, felt too small. The seams of the movie's much publicized reshoots are kind of visible and make it feel unfinished. I usually don't say this, but I felt this film could have easily been a half hour longer. The epic scale of the film could have withstood the extra running time and would have allowed them to deepen the character relationships and develop a more satisfying ending. I have a feeling there is probably a much longer directors cut of this we may see on the blu-ray. It's a great looking movie though, with some truly impressive scope to the cinematography, and it was nice to watch a blockbuster scaled movie with human sized heroics for once. Too bad the production couldn't overcome its problems to deliver something that was more than just okay.
 
Really good zombie movie with some minor flaws. People that saw the trailer and think it's going to be a big action film will be disappointed.

Spoiler alert:

The zombie "swarms" you see in the trailers are it. There are no more. you see it all in the trailers. What you don't see is it's more of a slow paced tense zombie film with some great twists and turns.

One thing that is amiss is the lack of blood in a zombie flick. It's very, very, very obvious with the framing and cuts keep all the bloody action off camera. And this is not always in a good way, like your imagination makes it more creepy than if you saw it, but often in a oh look, they are obviously going to pan or cut away because this is PG13 movie and they can't show blood sort of way.

But, over all really fun zombie flick.
 
Critics said this was a dog, and here it is number 1 at the box office, over 225 million in ticket sales in two weeks, and pretty much guaranteed a sequel will be made.

Thanks for posting the behind the scenes pics. Would love to visit Malta sometime.
 
****SPOILERS NOTHING BUT SPOILERS*****

The "climax" doesn't really feel like one. It's an effective, small scale set piece that is suspenseful enough on its own terms and necessary for the story, but considering what preceded it, felt too small.
Click to expand...

Absolutely.

A great summer movie, plenty of thrills & cool visual effects. But once we get to that final act, it became a case of diminishing returns. We had to sit through a lot of rigamarole as the three tiptoed through the lab. At some point I was like, "wait, is this even going to work? Do I care?". Suspenseful, but it's hard to top a scene where say....a giant alien is in Sigourney Weaver's face. (I dunno, Alien 3 came to mind as that zombie was chattering away in front of Brad Pitt)

Another huge problem I had was the ease of which Brad Pitt traveled from airport to Jerusalem and back. I have no idea of the lay of the land, but it just seemed like the airport was ridiculously close to general population. And even though the rest of the world is in the toilet, here we have a fully-functional airport like it's any other day???? It looked like a standard business class flight on that jetliner.

Let's not even get into that giant wall that they just constructed w/o any fanfare, notice or concern from other nations.

Had no idea this wouldn't be wrapped up in 2 hours.....So yes, I guess there will be sequels. Still was worth seeing despite my complaining. I had no problem with the lack of gore, in fact I found it refreshing.

thanks for posting those BTS pics.
 
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