Given its unbelievably troubled production -- numerous screenwriters were hired for rewrites, massive shoots were scrapped subsequent to principal photography, and on-set drama escalated to the point of certain individuals no longer speaking to one another -- it’s a miracle World War Z even made it to the big screen in 2013.
And yet, by all conventional measures of storytelling, the movie isn't awful. I should try to sound less surprised, but the truth is I expected something far worse. It’s by no means provocative, inspired, or original; but it checks enough of the standard storytelling boxes that it constructs a functional story. Gerry Lane is a family man who is forced into action to save the world from being overrun by -- what else? -- zombies.
But there seems to a divide in the DNA of the film. Part of it wants to be the summer blockbuster mega-CGI spectacle; part of it yearns to capture the emotional journey of a family split asunder. This is inevitably due to the film’s significant rewrites, which supposedly completely overhauled the film’s third act. These changes prove glaring as the film pushes through its first and second acts with grand-scale CGI zombie attacks and globe-trotting locales. By the third act, the film changes gears to become a small-scale cat-and-mouse stealth mission. The great irony to the contradicting tones, bloated budget, and countless headaches is that the reconstructed finale actually works. It finally relinquishes its ambitions to show off bigger, faster, fancier monsters -- probably forced by the quickly diminishing budget -- and in its place, manages to create and sustain tension. It’s the only segment of the film in which mood, motive, and execution all come together. However, its juxtaposition against the rest of the film feels artificial, at once underbaked and overcooked.
It’s clear to me that director Marc Forster was simply not the right man for this job. Forster had previously excelled in intimate character pastiches (Finding Neverland) but his first foray into the action adventure realm -- the exceedingly bland Quantum of Solace, which The Wall Street Journal labeled “a model of mediocrity” -- proved that he was not a director adept at handling action, intrigue, or dramatic stakes on a grand level. If World War Z was meant to represent Forster’s second chance at redemption, the film simply doesn’t help his cause. Action sequences are unnecessarily shaky; scares are predictably uninspired; any semblance of a social allegory against impending anarchy are extinguished by flat, boring story beats. Throughout the film, I was continually reminded of the greatness of Soderbergh’s Contagion, a film which crafted a supremely layered world of fear, paranoia, and dread without using a single CGI monster.
But all my nagging doesn’t change the fact that the film as a whole just doesn’t work. It doesn’t provide enough thrills to warrant a “horror film” label; it doesn’t focus enough on any character to warrant a “drama” label. It floats in an existential haze between allegorical and exciting, thoughtful and grandiose. It’s too large to feel any emotional attachment yet too small to absorb the gravity of a global pandemic.
The greatest appeal of any good horror story lies in the human connection which the protagonist allows. By extension, the human protagonist acts as a proxy for the audience to experience the very fear he/she is experiencing. The Exorcist relies on the immediate threat of Regan’s loss of innocence, which in turn mirrors Father Karras’ own loss of faith. Rosemary’s Baby drums up a suffocating world of paranoia as Rosemary’s entire existence begins to crumble around her. Even Paranormal Activity proved that horror can stem from a simple video camera recording everyday life, eschewing elaborate CGI for a meticulously cultivated atmosphere of uncertainty and doubt.
World War Z simply doesn’t feel like a horror film. Its grand-scale CGI ambitions -- as the trailers have amply demonstrated, the film cherishes its insect-like hordes of zombie drones -- undercuts any and all threat to the human characters. It’s more concerned with the blockbuster “money shots” than building a world of paranoia or dread. Zombies as a horror subgenre play on our primal fears -- what would we become if we let ourselves go? Would humanity be reduced to soulless vessels of ravaging appetite, consumed by and consuming our very own insipid existence? Would we tap into the hostility brewing behind the calm exteriors of everyday society, unleashing a primordial anger that is inherent in all of us? Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later managed to explore these ideas perfectly; it’s a pity World War Z doesn’t even show a hint of interest in examining these questions.
The saddest part of World War Z lies in its ambitions. This was a film that simply wasn’t ready; it needed more revisions, revisits, and redrafts to craft it into something as unique and absorbing as its source material. I never read the book but to my understanding, its appeal stems from its ability to paint an uncompromising picture of the world following a global catastrophe, replete with social, economic, and social consequences. That sounds like a story that could have been interesting. But the film adaptation simply doesn’t include any of what made the book so lovable. Instead, it becomes its own worst enemy, collapsing under the weight of its own self-declared importance and self-absorbed existence.
