Movie Review- World War Z

View fullsize

World War Z is the perfect summer movie. It's exciting, engaging and even quite scary. It's intense right from the unsettling opening credits and rarely lets up. Buckle up, it's a wild ride.

The movie follows Gerry Lane, as he attempts to get his wife and kids to a safe zone during a world wide zombie outbreak. Safety comes to his family in exchange for Gerry doing a dangerous mission for the United Nations, his former employer. Gerry leaves his family on a military ship as he accompanies a top virologist to what they believe is the initial source of the outbreak.  

Brad Pitt, whose production company (Plan B Entertainment) produced the film, stars as Gerry Lane. The most striking element of the casting, is that everyone seems very much like ordinary people, including Pitt. As Pitt has grown older, he has drifted away from sex symbol roles and fits well into the part of a father fighting for his family.

No one in this movie feel like a typical Hollywood actor. I didn't even recognize Matthew Fox, who plays a paratrooper in the film. 

The zombies move fast and are really scary. The movie has a few great scenes of people transitioning into zombies and it's horrific to watch. As seen in trailers for the film, the hordes of zombies crawling over each other looked like a colony of ants and was very visually disturbing. 

This movie will make you jump. A lot. It has loads of startle moments. I found myself holding my breath and clinching my fists. Did I mention that it's intense? Zombies aside, this is the story of a virus outbreak, which gives it the element of realistic horror, especially with regard to how humans react when all hell breaks loose. It's not pretty.

The story is solid. It has a mystery element to it, as everyone is racing to figure out the reason for the zombie outbreak and how to stop it. The mystery is unveiled slowly, as little hints are dropped along the way. Although it wasn't a mind-blowing type of revelation, I also didn't anticipate the reason behind the outbreak or the solution. The movie does a good job of keeping the viewer in the present moment, rather than giving them time to figuring everything out or search for plot holes. There was never a moment where I wasn't engaged with the action on the screen. The pacing is pitch perfect. 

The writing remains solid by revealing just enough without saying too much. They left the unanswered questions in a way that didn't leave me bothered. I accepted it. I feel like this was a far better storytelling solution than it would have been if they had created a rushed or silly ending. The story that they are trying to tell is on a micro time scale and is just a slice of what is ultimately a bigger global story. It is about Gerry Lane's role in the outbreak, not about the outbreak on a grand scale, this kept the story tight and certain questions irrelevant. 

This would be a great movie to be turned into a Halloween Maze. QUICK SPOILER ALERT - The zombies are affected by noise. I would love to see a maze where the zombie actors are triggered by noises that the guests can't help but create! The medical lab scene at the end of the movie would be the perfect maze setting. -DONE

World War Z is one of the most entertaining movies that I have seen this year. We watched it in a nearly sold out theater and the audience reaction was overwhelmingly positive, with tons of energy and people clapping at the end. I wish that every summer movie release was this good. 

Movie Review- The Place Beyond the Pines

View fullsize

The Place Beyond the Pines stars super hot Hollywood actors sporting really awful haircuts. In Ryan Goslings case, he has a bad haircut, bad hair color, bad clothes,  bad fake tattoos, et..

Kidding aside, The Place Beyond the Pines was a decent movie, a rarity for an early spring release.

The Place Beyond the Pines, follows two men, as their lives connect through a tragic circumstance. Ryan Gosling plays Luke, a carnival motorcycle stunt rider, who learns that he has fathered a son when he hooked up during the carnival's pass through Schenectady the previous year. He turns to bank robbery as a means to get quick cash to care for his child. Bradley Cooper plays the cop who pursues Gosling's character and has his own morality called into question when he becomes involved with a shady group of fellow police officers. The overriding themes are not only of the moral issues that confront the characters in the present, but the idea of generations repeating the patterns of their parents and nature vs. nurture. 

I was most excited to see this movie based on the director/writer, Derek Cianfrance. Cianfrance's 2010 emotional roller coaster Blue Valentine, blew me away with its intensity and honesty. I thought it was best movie of 2010.  The trailer for The Place Beyond the Pines didn't catch my attention, but the names involved did the trick.

This is an ambitious movie, very large in scale and themes. It's not what you would expect based on the trailer. It's extremely broad and there is no one central character. In fact, although Gosling and Cooper having starring roles, there are several very significant roles in the movie played by lesser known actors. This is very much an ensemble piece. 

In particular, Ray Liotta plays a great menacing villain, contributing heavily to some of the more intense moments in the movie.  

I felt like this movie bit-off more than it could chew and often times, it didn't quite gel, although I applaud the effort. The running time is two hours and twenty minutes and upon exiting the theater, I could have sworn that it was over three hours. The pacing is sluggish. There were many times when the same information and emotion could have been conveyed in a simplier manner. I felt like we were watching an extended directors cut. Cianfrance had many beautifully shot scenes and affecting writing, but he really needed to "Kill His Darlings" for the benefit of the whole movie.

The movie is artfully shot and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I loved the opening sequence of  Gosling walking through the fair, shot from a perspective of right behind him. It captures the tone perfectly. The car chase sequence with Gosling and Cooper, shot from Cooper's perspective with shaky, realistic camera work is one of the best parts of the movie. It completely feeds in to Cooper's character's muddled memories and frame of mind.  

What I didn't care for, was the over use of extreme close-ups and the overly dramatic film score. The score really ruined moments in the movie, adding a melodrama factor that wouldn't have been there otherwise. Again, it's all about keeping it simply stated and not adding that extra layer of drama that doesn't need to be there. As a movie goer, I shouldn't have actively noticed the score and it certainly shouldn't have been a distraction. The score created a barrier and a disconnect from the story. 

The grandiose nature of the story would have maybe better lent itself to a novel, rather than a movie. There is so much going on with themes and characters, that it was hard to have them fully realized in a movie format. There are many interesting ideas thrown around creating a story that easily lends itself to conversation and debate. It stuck with us long after walking out of the theater and we were talking about it off and on all day.

This wasn't nearly as affecting as Blue Valentine, but even with the imperfections, it was a solid story with strong acting and often beautifully shot. It's worth seeing in the theater.