World War Z

It's just another morning for Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), a former United Nations investigator. A normal morning he spends with his wife Karen (Mireille Enos) and his two daughters Rachel (Abigail Hargrove) and Constance (Sterling Jerins). But what begins as an idyllic morning abruptly turns into a nightmare when the family finds themselves in the midst of a virus-triggered zombie epidemic that seems to be spreading across the world at breakneck speed. At the last second, Gerry manages to get his family to safety. But now his professional skills are needed. He has to find out where the plague has broken out. Because only with the help of Patient 0 can a helpful antidote be created that will prevent all of humanity from turning into zombies. And so Gerry begins an odyssey around the globe, where his most dangerous opponent is not the zombies, but time!

Marc Forster is a director who never stands still. Again and again he ventures into new genres, which he then tries to imprint with his very own signature. Whether drama, James Bond, war film or comedy, Forster shows a creative versatility, in the course of which he has also developed a recognizable style. This is also revealed in his foray into the currently popular zombie genre. World War Z is based on the book Operation Zombie by Max Brooks, son of legendary comedy director and actor Mel Brooks. The book is written in the style of a collection of interviews in which survivors of the Zombie War talk about their experiences ten years after it broke out. The reader learns how the plague broke out and spread across the world, how ordinary people and governments dealt with the crisis. It's a highly original variation on the zombie mythos, which of course was difficult to film in this form.

Screenwriters Damon Lindelof (Lost), Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods), and Matthew Michael Carnahan (State of Play) obviously went to great lengths to extract some elements of the book and weave them into a story in the classic sense. They were based on a script by J. Michael Straczynski which, although it was met with much praise when an initial version was circulated on the internet, did not turn out promising enough for the producing studio. The delays caused by multiple rewrites of the script were just the beginning of numerous issues the production faced. When reshoots were eventually scheduled, particularly affecting the finale, tempers between director Forster and lead actor Brad Pitt were so tense that both reportedly only communicated with each other through third parties.

Unfortunately, all of these production difficulties are sometimes evident in the finished film. The decision to tell the story not from the point of view of several characters, as in the book, but only from the perspective of one individual, is certainly positive from a purely dramaturgical point of view. But in order to achieve a similar effect as the book, the character drawing simply should have been a bit more interesting and less clichéd. The well-behaved family man who takes on his mission less for the good of humanity and more for the survival of his wife and daughters just isn't interesting or multi-layered enough to give it a special edge.

Forster does, however, succeed with the visuals. The attacks of the zombie hordes, which sometimes happen at lightning speed, are impressively and mostly very excitingly realized. Whether it's in the freezing cold, in the air, or in the chilly hallways of a research lab, whenever Gerry has to run from the infected, World War Z's tension level rises drastically. However, whenever the story itself takes over, this zombie variation simply lacks bite. The satirical or socio-critical undertones of the book are rudimentary here. Whether J. Michael Straczynski's version came closer to the original and lack of willingness to take risks on the part of the studio can actually be blamed for the fact that the story presents itself at the end a little too ordinary and watered down, can only be suspected. But the fact is that the character of Gerry Lane has too few rough edges to make him a really interesting hero, whom you as a viewer like to accompany in his feverish search.

So the whole thing is still fun, exciting and worth watching. But something special is the global zombie invasion unfortunately not become. Still: Apart from the handheld camera shaky optics that are a bit too exhausting in places and the surprisingly flat 3D effects, World War Z really is a feast for the eyes. It's a pity that the opportunity to turn the spectacle into a clever genre work with a lasting effect, where you hope for a possible sequel right after the credits, was only used to a very limited extent. And therefore: for all those who are not looking for more than fast-paced zombie action with some suspense and great effects, World War Z is absolutely worth seeing. But if you're hoping for an intelligent story to go with it, one that also claims the zombies' favorite food, you're more likely to leave the cinema disappointed.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp