World War Z: Unrated Version (2013)

Number Rolled: 4

Movie Name/Year: World War Z: Unrated Version (2013)

Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Length: 122 minutes

Rating: UR

Affiliated Companies: Paramount Pictures, Skydance Productions, Hemisphere Media Capital, GK Films, Plan B Entertainment, 2DUX², Apparatus Productions, Latina Pictures

Executive Producer: David Ellison, Marc Forster, Dana Goldberg, Tim Headington, Graham King, Jillian Kugler, Paul Schwake, Bradford Simpson

Director: Marc Forster

Writer: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, Damon Lindelof, J. Michael Straczynski, Max Brooks

Actors: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Ludi Boeken, Matthew Fox, Fana Mokoena, David Morse, Elyes Gabel, Peter Capaldi, Pierfrancesco Favino, Ruth Negga, Moritz Bleibtreu, Sterling Jerins, Abigail Hargrove, Fabrizio Zacharee Guido, Ernesto Cantu, Vicky Araico

Gerry Lane is an employee of the United Nations. Although his job used to entail going to dangerous areas for various reasons, he no longer does that kind of thing. His primary focus is now his wife and two daughters. On their way out one day, disaster strikes and they find themselves trying to stay safe in a world of zombies.

I love Max Brooks. I read the Zombie Survival Guide twice. A lot of my closest friends are also big Max Brooks fans. There’s nothing better than sitting around and debating survival ideas for a zombie apocalypse. Most people were surprised when I didn’t rush to see this film in the theaters.

I don’t remember why I didn’t go. To be honest, I think it was money trouble. Whatever it was, I’ve been looking forward to Netflix getting it and I got the bonus of both the original and unrated versions becoming available.

The first thing I noticed was that the movie isn’t directly from the book it’s named for. I don’t think that’s a terribly important detail, though. World War Z, the book, is kind of an anthology of first person stories. To try and convert that kind of thing into a movie, we’d wind up with a very confusing horror-type version of New York, I Love You and The ABCs of Death. Trust me, nobody wants that.

World War Z, the movie, stuck to feel of the book. In this case, that seems more important to me. Not only because it stuck to the core of its namesake, but because it was easy to see inspirations taken from the Zombie Survival Guide as well.

As the movie goes, I found it to be pretty good. There was very little build-up before the big action started, but the transitions in the story aided the addition of suspense.

There were a few minor issues, but I can’t really go into them without adding spoilers. Without specifics, there were parts of the script that I felt were a little off; as if it was almost easy to tell where the different writers came in. I can only assume rewrites and budget issues contributed to the problem.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 67%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 72%

Netflix’s Prediction for Me – 4.2/5

Trust-the-Dice Score – 3.5/5

The Random Rating: R – For strong violence and implied rape scene

P.S. World War Z 2 has a tentative release date in 2016. It is reported to be directed by J.A. Bayona (Penny Dreadful, The Impossible) and written by Steven Knight (Closed Circuit, Redemption).

Movie Trailer: