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Movie Review: These Dead Don’t Walk. They Run.

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By A.O. Scott
HOLLYWOOD---“World War Z” is pretty refreshing. The movie, loosely adapted from Max Brooks’s 2006 novel of the same title, is under two hours long. Its action set pieces are cleverly conceived and coherently executed in ways that make them feel surprising, even exciting. Brad Pitt, playing a former United Nations troubleshooter pressed back into service to battle the undead, wears a scruffy, Redfordesque air of pained puzzlement. And, best of all, “World War Z,” directed by Marc Forster from a script with five credited authors, reverses the relentless can-we-top-this structure that makes even smart blockbusters feel bloated and dumb. The large-scale, city-destroying sequences come early, leading toward a climax that is intimate, intricate and genuinely suspenseful. [link] (A&O Rating: ★★★★)
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Bob Mondello | NPR said…
The film isn't subtle about making parallels to AIDS and other pandemics, and when it radically shifts gears in its final third, you won't need to have read Vanity Fair's take on its troubled production history to know things were rejiggered at the last minute. Whatever problems World War Z encountered in its making, the movie has made it to theaters not dead on arrival, but walking dead, running dead, and — when it's really working — swarming dead.
Sun Jun 23, 09:44:00 AM EDT
Max Brooks, Author "World War Z" said…
I wanted them to be easily defeatable, because therefore if they did take over, it would be our loss not their win. I get my inspiration for zombies from AIDS. When I was a kid, when I was a teenager, AIDS sorta stepped onto the stage and AIDS was like really, really, really preventable, like it is really hard to get it, but we screwed. We screwed up as a country, as a society, as a culture, and we didn’t do the basic smart things we should have done, and as a result, we let the genie out of the bottle, and we’ll never get it back in. That’s the same with zombies. If you’d make the right choices you could stop them really easy. They don’t have frickin’ super powers, at least in my book they don’t. That’s why I made these zombies the way they were. And that’s what inspired about the George Romero zombies, same thing, slow, rambling, easily stopped.
Sun Jun 23, 09:48:00 AM EDT
Ernest Disney-Britton said…
One of the best movies of 2013! It has character development, tension, great effects, intrigue and suspense, and it has Brad Pitt (new Robert Redford). Most intriguing though is this connection to the HIV infestation, and the idea race to develop a health and societal response to the epidemic. It's a story about risks, family, life, political decisions, promises and hope.
Sun Jun 23, 01:52:00 PM EDT
Verneida said…
What stood out for me, and Frankly I am surprised you didn't mention it was that the only religious moment in the film came from The Muslim call to prayer scene that led to such disastrous consequences.
Mon Jun 24, 06:44:00 AM EDT
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