MOVIE REVIEW: World War Z

I've been stuck in a hotel ballroom in Sacramento, California for most of the last week so at the suggestion of my fellow shut-ins we decided to blow off some steam celebrating our imminent release by attending a example of mindless filmed entertainment, in this case, the movie World War Z starring Brad Pitt. We saw the film at a "midnight screening" at 8:30pm Thursday night at the United Artists Arden Fair 6.

World War Z is directed by Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace) and with a team of writers that includes Damon Lindelof (Prometheus, Lost) and J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Thor), who are attempting to adapt the best-selling book by Max Brooks.

The movie starts off with a bang and never stops moving. In the first 5 minutes after a short domestic interlude with Pitt as a stay-at-home dad and a vaguely European wife and two cute daughters, we see move the family in the hell of early morning traffic in downtown Philadelphia to a nightmare of a completely different kind as all hell breaks loose as zombies start to ravage the city.

We discover that the job Pitt is staying home from somehow was prominent enough that he can call the deputy secretary-general of the United Nations and that in the world the movie depicts the United Nations has enough clout to have boats, helicopters and planes to maintain a semblance of civilization in the face of an apocalypse.

I don't want to give away too much of the movie. I would say that it is not a great movie (it's not as good as Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later but it is definitely better than Steven Soderbergh's Contagion). Both of these films were made by men who have won Best Director Oscars. Forster has been nominated by the Academy before and he does good work here (almost certainly not to be recognized in February). The story doesn't make much sense but there are some very arresting visuals and there's an absolutely stunning sequence that looks like it was actually shot in Jerusalem.

Overall, World War Z is a fun summer diversion that has you gripping the edge of your seat for 90 minutes straight without over-burdening one's reasoning centers.

Title: World War Z.
Director: Marc Forster.
Running Time: 1 hour, 51 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense frightening zombie sequences, violence and disturbing images.
Release Date: June 21, 2013.
Viewing Date: June 20, 2013.

Writing: C+.
Acting: B+.
Visuals: B+.
Impact: B.

Overall Grade: B (3.0/4.0).