This time in the corner we are going to take a look at the second theatrical release on this blog, the Brad Pitt summer zombie blockbuster World War Z. This movie is based on the novel of the same name written by Max Brooks. We will get to the comparison a little later. First, I am going to write a little about the novel. Max Brooks, the author, is the son of hilarious film maker Mel Brooks. The novel is in no way a comedy, but to me it is cool that Max has decided to write about something so different from anything like Blazing Saddles or History of World Part I. The best aspect of the novel, in my opinion is the way the narrative is constructed. Brooks doesn't follow one character necessarily in an adventure across the globe, or have a good guy or even really a bad guy (unless you count zombies as bad guys). The book is a series of written interviews that recount different times and instances in the war between the living and the non living. Interviews range from stories of battles, the fall of cities, and just being alone trying to stay alive. Brooks did an excellent job capturing people talking about war. Remove the fact that the enemy are zombies and the book could be an oral history of world war II or Vietnam. It is that realistic. When I found out that they were turning this book into a movie, I couldn't understand how they would turn this format into a film. This is in my opinion the only and biggest problem with Brad Pitt's movie. World War Z as a movie is an epic, globe spanning intense adventure, with Pitt doing a great job as our hero. He starts in the USA and treks to all corners of the earth including South Korea,Israel, and Wales. There are some great moments of true edge of your seat popcorn fun. The CG zombies run, crawl, and topple over each other almost like a colony of ants to climb walls and scale huge buildings. But the movie in no way really resembles much of the book aside from the title. I know most movies adapted from novels never really do those books justice, but it is hard to say that here because the movie and book really are two different works that happen to share the same name. There are some places where characters in the movie share dialogue with those in the book. There are also multiple characters in the novel that seem to have been combined into one for the purposes of the movie. But overall they are two different products. They are both well done in their own right, but there is very little overlap and commonality between the two. If you have read the book, and are looking to see this movie, I say go for it, just don't expect a faithful reconstruction of Max Brooks' novel. At this point World War Z has been out for over a month now and if you haven't seen this movie in the theaters yet you probably won't. But if you get the chance, seeing Brad Pitt's adventure on the big screen is worth it. The set pieces and the special effects look great in Sony Digital 4K. I know that when this movie is released on blu ray, I will probably pick it up. I will just keep the novel and the movie in different rooms so guests don't confuse them to be the same thing.
Overall, I recommend both movie and the book, particularly if you are a zombie fan. Leave comments in the section below and let me know which one you preferred. Did you find more similarities between the two than I did?
Next time in the corner I will be writing about truly one of the strangest movies I have ever seen. Another horror anthology...The ABCs of Death!
