That Movie that was Called World War Z

So I went to see the latest zombie flick that happens to share the title with the international bestseller by Max Brooks. Seriously, as a zombie action movie, it was pretty good ... in that it's on TV on a Saturday afternoon kind of way. As a movie that I will ever pay money for again? Not so much.

I'm being a little unfair. I've recently listened to the audiobook for World War Z, which has really good voice acting for a compelling narrative of episodes from all over the world describing first the zombie outbreak and initial denials ("Zombies? No way."), survival stories, the establishment of safe zones, and humanity getting back on its feet and fighting back against the zombie horde. The movie that shares the same name is the story of Brad Pitt as former UN journalist faced with the zombie outbreak, flying all over the world searching for a cure for the virus.

My problems with World War Z:

1. Fast zombies. In the book, Brooks goes into great detail to describe the brainless, shuffling, moaning, hungry, indefatigable, unfazed zombie horde. No leadership. No hierarchy. Everybody's equally dull and hungry. In the movie, zombies can not only run, they apparently have grown thicker skulls that can bash in car windows in ways that Chuck Norris could never dream. Seriously, movie makers? That should have splattered their own brains long before they could have ever bashed through a car windshield -- effectively, zombie suicide.

2. No one can use their telephones or email. Why on earth is Brad Pitt wasting jet fuel going to talk to people in Korea, Israel, and the UK who clearly have both generators and telecommunications access? How would zombies interrupt satellite communications? This is what was the strong point of the book; it looked at how people would actually react: using military-grade weapons designed to wound and not necessarily kill humans, locking zombie-infected family members in apartments rather than killing them, raiding camping stores for supplies, gathering information online, etc.

3. There was a deus ex machina. Fast zombies with a 12-second incubation period require it. The movie did set it up, beginning with the opening credits, to be fair. But this was somehow less compelling than the survival stories of people who feared infection by a virus with a two-day incubation period. That incubation period allowed the virus to become a pandemic. Of course, what am I complaining about? What could be better than a zombie? More zombies!

Granted, no fabulous book is ever going to be a perfect movie, even if a perfect movie were possible. But, seriously, it was like the script writers read the first fifty pages and said, "I know how THIS is going to end." Right. And I bet you're still under the impression that Dr. Horrible ended well, too. And Elizabeth Bennett totally found true love with Colonel Wickham. :-|

Ways that World War Z would have made a viable movie:

1. Select a few stories and have the journalist interview them and have them shown as a series of flashbacks. Brad Pitt could be the journalist still, or if that's not enough action for the big name, then you could save your casting budget to fill in the gobs of bit parts that would entail. 

2. If you can't handle actually demonstrating that you have read the book, then just stick to one story in the book. Then, you keep Brad Pitt as action star, you have fewer roles to cast, and your movie deserves the same title as the book.

Or you could have just called it One More Zombie Movie, Folks. 'Cause that's what it was. An enjoyable one to be sure with terrifying moans that they got right, but fast zombies? Really?