World War Z (2013, dir. Marc Forster)

Hmm.

Nah.

A zombie movie directed by the Qunt of Solace?

Pass.

Looks like a poor man's version of Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS.

Is this guy still making films? Has he no shame?

Python wrote:

Looks like a poor man's version of Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS.

A poor man's version of a crap movie? :shock:

Salomé wrote:

Python wrote:

Looks like a poor man's version of Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS.

A poor man's version of a crap movie? :shock:

You. My office. NOW.

I'm gonna pass.

Die Foster Die! Thief and con man, piece of shit.

Not sorry or apologetic to say I really liked all of the trailer, even with the cheat-cut of the cop getting sideswiped by something that wasn't in the frame behind him just a second earlier (see, I'm even secure enough to point out bad shit everybody else will jump all over.)

Honest to God, you'd really think the raped-my-childhood folks from SW were here based on response to Forster's name. The guy delivered the ONLY moments I've felt related to Fleming since LTK ... perhaps that was because that film's occasional brief respites from ADD action resonated for me more than usual, and for all I know, it may be deliberate on his part.

STRANGER THAN FICTION was a helluva movie, and he seems to have been the critics' darling before QUANTUM, going by a lot of reviews I've read over the years.

I understand fans of the book are predisposed to hate this because of the reduction in scope and focus, but this isn't the director who undermined Dalton's work through negligence or the guy who kept making the same Bond movie over & over with YOLT, SPY and MR. He made Bond political in a way Eon always strove to consciously avoid, but whose fault is that? The New Eon -- if they didn't want his vision, they could have just stopped asking him to make the film after the first time.

Holding Forster responsible for the film he made is unreasonable? :)

I've never liked a single film by Marc Forster. MONSTER'S BALL was an offensive, patronising work of a PC pseudo-artiste; THE KITE LOVER was similarly patronising, arty, PC and affectless; STRANGER THAN FICTION was hipsterish self-indulgence; FINDING NEVERTHELAND was schmaltz sub-Ron Howard pap, STAY was a tedious mess, and QUANTUM OF SOLACE... was QUANTUM OF SOLACE.

SKYFALL has far more Fleming in the single scene between Bond and Severine at the bar than QUANTUM has in its entirety.

Looks like WAR OF THE WORLDS bred with 28 DAYS LATER. And the CGI looks awful.

I don't know anything about the source material, but that trailer does not make the movie look like anything special at all.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Holding Forster responsible for the film he made is unreasonable? :)

Not at all. I'm saying this seems like the kind of kneejerk response that you see from SW fans about GL tampering and prequels ... not saying those aren't relevant issues raised, just that the posts have a reactive quality rather than one of legit response. More of the snipe than the considered opinion.

trevanian wrote:

Erica Ambler wrote:

Holding Forster responsible for the film he made is unreasonable? :)

Not at all. I'm saying this seems like the kind of kneejerk response that you see from SW fans about GL tampering and prequels ... not saying those aren't relevant issues raised, just that the posts have a reactive quality rather than one of legit response. More of the snipe than the considered opinion.

Well, that's undeniably true, but then I wouldn't take anything you read here very seriously. It's just R&R.

I just think it looks crappy. FWIW, I enjoyed STRANGER THAN FICTION and THE KITE RUNNER. Even QOS to an extent, I have problems with that film but I don't think it's the worst thing to happen to the series.

Armond White wrote:

From Pandemic to Pandemonium

The culture war waged in World War Z

World War Z ends with Brad Pitt’s voiceover cautioning “The war has just begun.” That could also be a disgruntled producer-star warning about the current state of film culture which has found a new low level of gullibility.



Add the disaster of World War Z to complaints about the superb Man of Steel; it shows the unprecedented diminishment of cultural standards where people want what they’ve already bought before: the unserious yuckster crap of the past. That’s why the dismal Iron Man movies are the most praised of all summer blockbusters; they offer no challenge while Man of Steel’s serious fun (visual ingenuity and emotional power) are almost completely misunderstood.

We’re at Cultural Ground Zero–the point where Hollywood has obliterated its own past achievements just to sell more product. World War Z demonstrates this by combining the formula for TV’s The Walking Dead series with the apocalyptic snark cinema of Children of Men. Pitt plays Gerry Payne, a government operative experienced in Libya and Chechnya and forced to fight a global pandemic of zombism. It’s a gimmick of fan boy naivete, as if nobody connected with World War Z had seen 28 Days, 28 Days Later, 28 Days’ Mama or any other zombie flick.

World War Z starts from stupid scratch, mixing global catastrophe with silly pseudo-science about viruses and bacteria and anything goes.

“Mother Nature is a serial killer. She wants to get caught,” an expert pathologist informs Payne. The plot goes from ecology to atheism as Payne, wearing a blue Kabbalah wrist rope bracelet, travels from Philadelphia to New Jersey, to New York, to Korea and Israel to fight the epidemic. He witnesses CGI horrors of multitudes in chaos evoking the pandemonium of either revolution or holocaust.

It’s part of a casual, insulting attempt at political commentary where Zombie hoards = radical Islamic terrorists, somehow equating the mindless urge to devour and destroy with the desperation of non-believers–or else junk science. There’s even a mysterious Bengazi-style government memo. (“An e-mail, not a memo. Nobody read it.”) Yet none of this topical stuff matters as much as the inept filmmaking. Director Marc Forster features the same insensitivity he brought to Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction and The Kite Runner. His 3D imagery foregrounding unimportant objects distracts from a viewer’s concentration.

Pitt’s another victim of cultural ground zero who apparently didn’t know enough to hire a director skilled at the zombie genre. Hasn’t Pitt seen any of Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil spectaculars? But who knows if Anderson could overcome the sloppy storyline and character development in the script that resulted from five of the worst screenwriters in contemporary Hollywood: Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom), J. Michael Straczynski (Changeling), Drew Goddard (Cloverfield), Damon Lindelof (Prometheus) and SNL comedy writer Max Brooks who also word-processed the source novel. Pitt ends the film in hero mode, offering some intimate expressions of sacrifice, but nothing can camouflage the film’s emptiness, that lack of conviction or connection between shots that signifies failure.

http://cityarts.info/2013/06/21/from-pandemic-to-pandemonium/

Very much agree with White that the over-praise for Marvel films and their like signals a cultural low for cinema, but I don't entirely agree with his views on World War Z and Man of Steel. The latter began spectacularly, but resorted to the same lowest common denominator destruction of the Marvel flicks and Transformers. I found no fun in that. Yes, World War Z doesn't really hide the fact that it's primarily empty summer entertainment, yet it remains engaging throughout and few scenes overstay their welcome. It doesn't feel sterile or artificial and is one of the better American popcorn flicks of the past few years.

Really? The whole Israel sequence in World War Z ached with pretention, as did the end. It felt like Quantum of Solace with zombies, frankly. Its best feature was that it was mercifully short and featured a variety of locations. It would be more forgiveable had it not reshot the third act, a) because the sequence that replaced it frankly isn't that great and b) the big action spectacular that was originally shot would at least have kept the film consistent as a series of dumb thrills.

Honest, I think its a damn shame that somehow Armageddon and Pearl Harbour became the standard for  'passable' action blockbusters. If they were to come out to day I really doubt they'd be panned as they were.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/27554/-world-war-z-sequel-back-in-development

Quote :

"World War Z" Sequel Back In Development

By Garth Franklin Sunday June 23rd 2013 11:30PM
"World War Z" Sequel Back In Development

The epic zombie apocalyptic antics of Marc Forster's "World War Z" hauled in an impressive $111.8 million in its worldwide debut this weekend, $66 million from North America alone.

That is the highest opening for an original live-action tentpole since "Avatar," not to mention the biggest debut of star Brad Pitt's career.

Originally planned as a trilogy adaptation of the Max Brooks novel, those follow-up plans were scrapped after the project ran into trouble and required extensive reshoots.

Now, Paramount chairman Rob Moore says the studio will "actively turn" to develop further installments, reviving those plans they had previously put on ice.

Pitt aggressively helped with the marketing of WWZ, showing up at numerous early screenings ranging from suburban American cinemas to various star-studded global premieres from Moscow to Sydney.

Make it stop.

A trilogy!? Strewth.

I watched this piece of shit last week. Not much to say. Vesper had it spot-on: "Quantum of Solace with zombies."

Hardly any redeeming qualities. I guess the ending made for a half-decent suspense scene. The fucking jetliner was awful, but hilarious.