Film review: World War Z Pitt poised for box-office swing against Superman

MANILA, Philippines - Only another hero-themed film could potentially steal theater success from Man of Steel. And Brad Pitt is about to take Henry Cavill to school with the help of gazillions of zombies.

A box-office battle between Superman and UN envoy Gerry Lane (Pitt in World War Z) seemed to favor the former and Man of Steel has, in fact, been galvanized on top of the blockbuster countdown. But what World War Z worked out is its briskly-paced, suspense-packed and drama-laced zombie apocalyptic story that wastes no screen frame.

The novel by Max Brooks, from which the film was based, worded a clinical yet creepy and creeping account of zombie pandemic through a journalist’s point of view while Z concentrated on the Great Panic part of the book.

Retired UN investigator Gerry Lane (Pitt), his wife and two young daughters are seen playing Pinoy Henyo during intro scenes while stuck in Philadelphia traffic. Seconds later, hundreds of “zombie flu” infected, well, zombies spread chaos as the rush-hour-populated area is overpowered by the undead.

Gerry is reactivated to UN duty in exchange for refuge for his family aboard a US battleship where experts are exhausting all known means to find patient zero hoping that the search will lead to a cure. 

Gerry’s mission takes him to Korea (where early outbreaks were recorded) and Jerusalem (the only city that managed to build a walled perimeter before the pandemic reached the holy land). Throughout his many great escapes (he’s always half a step ahead of the zombies), Gerry is portrayed a family man whose investigative instincts work with spot-on observations all proven critical coming to the film’s ending.   

What World War Z lacks is bite, the kind of bite that blood and gore fans look for. But we’ve swam through too many of that bloodbaths in Resident Evil, Dawn of the Dead, Zombieland, 28 Days Later, etc. What the Marc Forster-helmed thriller presents is a PG-13 bounded account of Gerry’s heroics that has Die Hard undertones smattered all over it having to outrun human-hungry packs of undead the entire movie while piecing things together for possible antidote to the humanity-obliterating virus. Although anemic in blood splash, the film offers hope from a seemingly hopeless war and audience is rarely treated with surviving main actors in zombie films these days. 

Fans of the novel will notice many of the references the adaptation integrated into the movie version. Best quotes in the book were used in the film such as: â€œMost people don’t believe something can happen until it already has. That’s not stupidity or weakness, that’s just human nature.”

Standout parts include the fall of Jerusalem, where people figured out a way to quarantine themselves and rescue the uninfected because “every human we save, one less zombie to fight.” But in a fit of stupid irony, they did not figure out that noise (the uninfected crowd was chanting the blessed quarantine system) attracts the infected who managed to build their own tower of undead to reach the other side of the city’s not so great wall. 

The aircraft outbreak also has Brad in a no-win situation that sends viewers wondering how he will survive this part, while the final thrills inside the branch of World Health Organization see the Hollywood A-lister pulling out more heroics against his D-lister enemies. But make no mistake about it, zombies in films are no D-listers as they have a constant rendered support to make stars like Brad look too cool. 

From Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions and distributed by United International Pictures through Solar Entertainment Corporation, World War Z is now showing in theaters.