Marc Forster | 123 mins | Blu-ray | 2.40:1 | USA & Malta / English | 15
In the weeks leading up to its theatrical release, it was already known that World War Z was going to be an almighty flop. An unscrupulous movie studio had taken a cult novel and thrown away everything but the title, alienating its existing fanbase. They’d spent a fortune making a movie in a traditionally R-rated genre that, if released at R, could never make its money back, and if released at PG-13 would never attract an audience. Then they reshot the entire third act, pushing the budget through the roof and ensuring the resultant film would get critically mauled. A fanbase snubbed, an impossibly huge budget, a genre/rating disconnect, and unavoidably poor reviews to come — World War Z was going to flop, and it was going to flop hard.
Then it came out, and became the highest-grossing film to star Movie Star™ Brad Pitt, and the highest-grossing original film of Summer 2013, and made nearly triple its budget worldwide, and even got fairly good reviews. Maybe I was reading the wrong sources in the run up to its release, or maybe it really was that rarest of things, perhaps even unique: a movie hype-resurrection that was less zombie and more phoenix.
The film sees Pitt’s retired UN investigator called back to duty when a rapidly-spreading plague, which turns people into zombie-like rabid creatures, breaks out around the globe. With his family in tow, he escapes an over-run Philadelphia and ends up with what’s left of the US population on a small fleet of ships, before jetting off around the world on a hunt for answers and, hopefully, a vaccine. Cue large-scale action sequences as director Marc Forster aims for an apocalyptic sci-fi/action epic rather than the zombie genre’s usual stomping ground of claustrophobic supernatural scares.
That, at least, is something different. The first half-hour races through stuff we’ve seen time and again: zombie attacks, humans turning on humans as they loot supermarkets, etc. Here the zombies are of the 28 Days Later-style speedy variety, all the better for creating blockbuster action sequences, such as a huge chase through crowded streets, or a running fight up the stairways of an apartment building. This is where the PG-13 certificate shows through (even though this cut is technically unrated in the US, the fact both versions received a 15 over here is telling): there’s little focus on violence or gore; which is fine, but won’t satisfy the more blood-hungry genre fans.
It’s after this that things, as noted, turn from claustrophobic to post-apocalyptic. The storyline feels moderately fresh, showing us the global scope of such an outbreak, rather than how a global event impacts a small group of people. I believe this is the closest the film gets to the spirit of the novel (which I’ve not read, so take that comparison with a pinch of salt). However, what’s new to the zombie genre isn’t necessarily new in any other respect, and by the time we get to Jerusalem and the characters are again being chased through crowded streets, it begins to feel a tad repetitive. Some of the sequences work well though, particularly a zombie outbreak on a passenger plane.
The re-shot final act is a breath of fresh air. Apparently the originally-filmed version was yet another epic battle, which has been switched for a more tense creep around a semi-abandoned research facility in… Wales. Yep, a big budget Hollywood action movie climaxes in the middle-of-nowhere in Wales. I quite like that. 
It’s a Wales populated by a Londoner, a Scotsman and a Spaniard, but still. I say “more tense” because this is far from the most nail-biting zombie film you could see. The finale is a nice change of pace, and does work as a climax in spite of the bombast that precedes it, but these are zombies as teen-friendly action movie menace, not adult scare-inducers, so don’t except to feel much fear or surprise.
As to the extended cut, it adds only about seven minutes… but there are 121 differences. I can’t even be bothered to read that properly, never mind recount it. There seem to be myriad tiny extensions to all the action sequences, many of them literally lasting a fraction of a second — someone watched this really closely! I can only presume this is actually the original cut, which was then trimmed for the sake of the MPAA to create a theatrical version, because who would consciously go back to add so many little bits? Some are even described as “very unnecessary extension”s by that summary. Other moments do expand on character, though in a subtle fashion (looks like the attempted rape of our hero’s wife, and the murder of one of the wannabe rapists, previously got the snip), or do add to the gore — clearly, it’s too much for a PG-13, but certainly within the realms of a 15. I can’t imagine any of it makes a great deal of difference to the overall experience, however.
Generally, World War Z is a competently entertaining blockbuster. It moves pleasingly fast, with characters quickly and lightly sketched rather than lingered on — not to everyone’s taste, and I imagine some will find it emotionally cold in the way so many recent spectacle movies are. There’s perhaps room for more, particularly from Daniella Kertesz’s Israeli soldier, who is nonetheless somehow the film’s most appealing character; 
but I don’t think it was the filmmakers’ aim to make us feel the characters’ plight, but instead to show the scope of a worldwide disaster. It does that pretty well, even if the occasionally-CGI zombies prove to be an I Am Legend-style plasticky distraction, especially when coupled with impossible swooping camera shots — it’s better and more effective in the sections where there’s a grittier feel to the camerawork and practical zombie make-up.
As it lacks the social subtext or extreme gore that the two branches of zombie fandom most value, I don’t think WWZ will find an enduring place in genre-fans’ hearts. As an epic summer action blockbuster, however, it largely passes muster.
World War Z is on Sky Movies Premiere this week, starting today at 4pm and 8pm. It’s also available on Now TV, where the running time suggests it’s the extended cut.
Alfred Hitchcock is famous for a good many movies — I wager most people would jump to 
Grant is as wonderful as ever, a perfect ‘everyman’ to guide us through the crazy turns of events, but also finding the appropriate level of humorous edge where it exists. Eva Marie Saint is a textbook ‘Hitchcock Blonde’, attractive but duplicitous — women, eh? James Mason makes for an excellent English-accented villain — today it may be a terrible cliché to use Brits as villains in Hollywood movies, but we’re so damn good at it. That said, Martin Landau makes for a deliciously creepy henchman, so there’s no monopoly. There’s also Leo G. Carroll, who to me will always be best known from 
Based on a novel by Morton Freedgood (writing as John Godey), previously adapted into 
None of that here, where the captives are either even more unnoticeable, or heroic off-duty military types. So far so standard.
Applied here to such a meat-and-potatoes tale, it feels like they’re trying to jazz it up because it can’t sustain itself otherwise.
The writing and directing team from 
As for the veracity of the facts, I have no idea. Nothing seems implausible. And when condensing eight years of a manhunt into around two hours of screen time, of course some details will be lost, or truncated, or slightly modified to support the flow. I think those who allege the film is poppycock are accusing it of more than minor tweaks, but nonetheless, that’s inevitably part of the process. What’s perhaps most interesting is it hasn’t whitewashed the facts to make a film that feels like A Movie — this isn’t a relentless thriller-shaped eight-year chase, but a more methodical, occasionally messy, real-life-like quest for information.
This carries through to the final half-hour (or so), which is a near-real-time rendition of the Navy SEAL mission to invade bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. The unit assigned to the task turn up and get on with it — like the rest of the characters, they are no more than sketches. I read a review that asserted this is where the film’s focus should have been — on who these men were, what their home lives were like, on their training for the mission, and what effect it had on them after. All of which are valid points for a film, but that’s not what Zero Dark Thirty is trying to be.
The one other criticism I do agree with is that we don’t see enough of the SEALs’ preparation. They built a full-scale replica of the compound and trained on it — was that not worth putting on screen? I know this is the story of Maya and her investigation, not the SEALs and their assault, but I think a bit of time could have been spent on that fascinating aspect of the raid. On the bright side, there’s a sequence where our characters collect their still-in-development super-top-secret stealth helicopters from Area 51. Yes, really. I guess that must be true, because without the reality-claim of the previous two hours it would come across as 
Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as a Manhattan bicycle courier in this near-real-time action-thriller from co-writer/director David Koepp. Charged with getting a letter from one end of Manhattan to the other through rush hour traffic ASAP, Gordon-Levitt finds himself coming up against a loony cop (Michael Shannon) who for some reason is desperate to get his hands on said envelope…
Gordon-Levitt makes for as appealing a lead as ever, not that his charm is called on much, while Shannon is a memorably crazed villain. He’s a better fit here than he was as 
Based on a true story, this film noir sees two chums on the way home from a fishing trip pick up a hitchhiker. As you can tell from the title, he turns out to be rather significant: he’s a murderer on the run, and pulls a gun on the men so they’ll do his bidding, which is take him to Mexico so he can escape justice. Oh dear.
But does her gender add any different perspective? I think perhaps it does. If you read 
After a decade locked away in motion-capture madness, Robert Zemeckis returned to the realms of the real with this Oscar-nominated drama. Its most high-profile nod was for Denzel Washington, starring as an airline pilot who miraculously crash lands his plane, but is revealed to have been high during the flight. Cue a film that attempts a grown-up account of addiction, but fumbles it, in the process missing the more interesting story of the crash investigation.
Director Robert Wise certainly had an eclectic career. Depending on your genre predilections, you may feel he’s best known for 
Even today, it’s quite a nasty little work, although tastes have evolved to the point where “discriminating people” are likely to be attracted to it — though not purely for the violence. You’d imagine that would pale by today’s standards, but even now the opening double homicide — presented pretty much in full on screen — is quite shocking, especially because it seems so horrendously plausible. Much movie violence is heightened, involving gangsters or spies or whatever, but here it’s a lover in a jealous rage killing two people in the kitchen of a regular house. Grim.
sometimes develop a cult following.
I don’t like Lee Child. I’ve never read one of his novels, but I’ve read and seen interviews with him, and always felt he comes across as intensely pompous and irritating. I disclose this up front because it leaves me predisposed to dislike Jack Reacher, the first (they hope) movie adaptation from Child’s series of novels starring ex-military policeman and now all-purpose vigilante Jack (you guessed it) Reacher.
How much you consider the twists to be twisty will depend on which suspects your guesswork picks out, but in that regard it’s as strong as other similar genre examples.
Some say this is the worst of the series, and I think I agree. 
100Films.co.uk 