Dish of the Day
Just some film musings of a more succinct, spontaneous and sometimes seditious nature:
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Today’s “Dish of the Day” has a review of mine that was inspired by a post in one of the Facebook film related chat rooms. This includes the Cinema Cafe group (all readers are encouraged to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/902349343110685).
World War Z (2013)
World War Z foretells of a filmmaking future where artists no longer need worry about A.I. taking over since any storytelling has already been completely tasked to technicians. How far we’ve travelled downward from the innovative, imaginative, and character-driven Night of the Living Dead (1969) made on a threadbare shoestring budget to this monstrosity: a passionless, skeletal, concept-driven retread with a half-assed, dramatically unsatisfying finish. Who are these primary fictional participants, besides being just a few of many trying to survive? A wild bird who visits me has more recognisable personality traits than any of the characters in this film. Ditto video games which World War Z otherwise resembles. The family we follow are able to take advantage of the special privileges Brad Pitt’s former U.N. investigator offers. Lucky them. For the rest of us, all we can do is watch a shitload of money being spent on special effects amidst an endless amount of international travel hopping. Is there anyone who has a part to play or acting required besides just “running this way over there"? Does an attention worthy plot exist other than stopping the zombies (the latter group with as much motive as the the people trying to flee from them)? Both the zombie and virus premises have been done to death on film and television. World War Z is a truly monotonous repetition of cliches involving people in peril. It has a plot twist of sorts (a discovery relating to the zombies behaviour that adds nothing to the characters, subtracting just a wee bit of tedium to the chain of events) but just like everything else that happens, savvy viewers will continuously sense an enormous think tank of executives and other behind the scenes personnel tinkering with this or that in a desperate attempt (on a level equal to their characters trying to save themselves) to figure out what will sell the most tickets. This last observance is confirmed, of course, by the countless changes made all during, and after, production due in part to the gargantuan amount of ongoing money invested in the project. So, big money, big name star, big CGI and still, it's an even bigger chore to sit through. I don't know what would take a greater effort: actually trying to get away from the zombies or trying to get something meaningful out of stories like this one about people trying to get away from zombies. Someone stated in our chat room: "It’s a pity the sequel (scrapped in 2019) seems to have been cancelled..." even though cancellation is the most definitive cure for the threat posed to both the sequel’s human inhabitants and the humans exposed to another of its equally lethal creations on film.
A.G.