World War Zzzzzzz

I finally got around to watching World War Z last night and it's a perfect example of a paint-by-numbers zombie film packed with post-28 Days Later cliches.

The 2006 novel by Max Brooks on which this story is based feels like an entirely different entity, with so few similarities that it wouldn't be unreasonable for many casual observers to cry plagiarism.

Written in retrospect following the conclusion of the decade-long battle against the zombie horde, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie Apocalypse was formed from a series of self-contained interviews with key characters who had taken central roles in the events of the preceding ten years.

It was well written, exciting and subtle, slowly building up the layers of the story to form a global view of the catastrophe as it took place. Using personal stories to tell a tale of global apocalypse developed strong bonds between the reader and the characters.

However much like those bitten by a zombie, nothing intelligent or all that interesting survived the conversion process.

The entire story rises from the grave as an undead slug-fest, peppered here and there with moments of what could be loosely considered exposition.

The formula is simple: after a hurried first act where we meet the Lane family, including former UN investigator, Garry, his wife and two daughters, we are thrown into the melting pot as zombies run amok amidst a traffic jam in downtown Philadelphia.

The family steals an abandoned RV, grabs some supplies from a supermarket, fights its way up a tower block and grabs a helicopter to take them to the United Nations flotilla out in the middle of the ocean. Garry is strong-armed into helping the UN find the cause of this outbreak and a potential cure, his family's place on the flotilla secure only through his assistance.

From here, the film relies on formulaic and seemingly entirely interchangeable set pieces, all of which involve Garry arriving at a location, the zombies attacking, Garry running away, Garry fighting a zombie, Garry going to the next location...repeat.

This is Garry running. This happens a lot. 

While some of the locations offered a sense of oppressive foreboding, they were by and large just reproductions of each other: contained areas with zombies in them through which Gerry at some point needs to pass.

The section on the AirBus was interesting but ultimately fatuous as it transposed Garry (plus zombie who had been hiding in the toilet...or something) from the ground to the air to - you guessed it - fight some zombies.

This melange of factory-produced zombie run-ins almost made me wish that something would come along and eat my brain.

This is a film that has little regard for anything that might siphon too much time away from scenes of Brad Pitt running away from stuff. That includes development of either plot or characters, with Pitt's wife and two daughters reduced to nothing more than mannequins, barely registering above set-dressing. The presence of these actors served to do nothing more than to tick the box for 'family in peril'.

The subplot involving their place on the UN flotilla hanging in the balance as everyone believes Gerry to be dead made almost zero impression, with their use as an emotional rock only really served to drag this film down into the realm of the entirely mundane.

"I warned you about those sunbeds, Hank. Didn't I warn you?"

Adding to this grating tedium, there was also never any sense that anything bad was going to happen to our Gerry. There was never a sense of peril. He was, after all, the nearly-invulnerable human being who survived waves of zombies, hails of bullets, nearby explosions, a plane crash and being impaled on a piece of shrapnel and then pretty much walked it off.

Good work, Gerry.

Brooks' novel didn't rely on or revel in the chaos of a zombie infestation; instead it focussed on the wider impacts, demonstrating the effects on long-standing social tropes of the devastating effect of the species being brought to the brink of annihilation. Some nations turned to barbarism, some withdrew entirely and some became theocratic.

I can see why the changes were made: the narrative structure of the book doesn't lend itself to a big screen conversion and would have needed to be made in more of a documentary style. This would have required thought on the part of the audiences, complexity on the part of the screenwriters, intelligence on the part of the director and ultimately, risk to the studios.

However much like those bitten by a zombie, nothing intelligent or all that interesting survived the conversion process. 

An original, more faithful script by J Michael Straczynski was apparently thrown out prior to the start of filming to make way for this unadulterated mess.  It was little surprise, therefore, to see that Damon Lindelof had been involved in the production, although only as a post-ampersand screenwriter.

Lindelof's portfolio reads like a resume of 'could have beens', including Lost, Star Trek Into Darkness and Prometheus, all of which were widely acknowledge as suffering from a number of issues relating primarily to plot.

Frankly, the most horrifying thing about this film was a clip of arch shitworm, Piers Morgan - complete with his pugnacious, fist magnet of a face - banging on about how the world was on the brink of collapse as part of a tired and tiresome montage of news reports played over the opening credits.

The fact that the UN's chief virologist and 'best hope of finding a cure' manages to shoot himself in the face within seconds of landing at the first destination on their world tour is a wonderful metaphor for this whole bloated, boring mess of movie.

I'm going to read the book again and try to avoid the two sequels that are apparently already in the works.