The Best Zombie Movie

"Mother Nature is a serial killer. No one's better, more creative, but, like all serial killers, she can't help the urge to want to get caught."

*Spoilers Ahead*

Brad Pitt Looking Awesome

I don't know why that part grabbed me so much. Maybe I have been thinking the same thing for years. Maybe, because it's true. They say that we have to protect Mother Nature, we have to think about the environment, about pollution. We do. But don't think that nature can't protect itself. In George Carlin's words - "The planet has been through a lot worse than us... We're going away. The planet'll be here and we’ll be long gone." And it's true - it can get rid of us with a lot of natural disasters or a virus, that will kill a large part of the human population.


That's the idea in World War Z. Like many zombie movies, you don't see the origin, you don't see the first infected person, the origin of this disease. You see the consequences. But you don't want to see the origin. The writers have made their point pretty clear - it's a virus and it works like a virus. This movie actually makes the popular zombie scenario possible. How? Because it is pretty clearly explained with arguments and examples.

Andrew Fassbach gave a wonderful example - until 1918 nobody ever heard of the Spanish flu, but from 1918 to 1920 it killed 3% of the World's population. This is how serious a virus could get. And imagine if you have a more complexed virus. Something even faster spreading, something that is mutating. Add the ignorance of people and you have the perfect scenario for an early apocalypse.

World War Z is not your regular survival horror film, where a bunch of people are trying to get to safety. It's about the cure. We have seen films like I am legend, where Will Smith finds the cure against the infected ones, but things are a little bit different here. There is a new idea, a new concept. Unlike other stories, here you don't have immune people to the virus. In I am Legend, Will Smith is immune, in Dead Island (the game) your main characters are also immune to the virus. Basically, there are a lot of plots like this.

Here you have camouflage. Imagine us, the humans, as cells. If humanity is a big organism, humans are the cells. Now, you release a virus. How does a virus work? It injects its genetic material to the cell, the virus makes more parts for viruses from the enzymes in the cell, those particles assemble into new viruses, they break from the dead cell and do the same thing to the other cells. You can see that this is the exact way the zombies in the movie work. Biting you (attaching and injecting material), for the next 12 seconds your whole body is turned into a big virus. The next step is to spread to other cells - more biting. Zombies are not interested in eating the bodies. But there is a trick here. Viruses don't attack unhealthy cells. 

This is the principle of the camouflage. If you are not healthy, have some disease, the virus will not attack you. It was said "Sometimes the things you thought were the most brutal aspect of the virus, turns out the be the chink in it's armour". So, the weakness to the disease is other diseases. By making yourself sick, the virus will not want to infect you. You are invisible to it. The zombies will pass you "like a rock in a river".

This is why I love this film. World War Z shows us a different aspect of all the zombie films. It's not about the horror factor, it's not made to shock or scare you, so you can't sleep at night. I have friends, who are generally freaked out by zombies, but saw the movie and liked it. Did you notice, that they did not show the cut hand of Segen? Did you notice that there wasn't that much blood and guts around. It wasn't the point. Many films, series, shows are trying to create the shock factor and attract more audience. The style here is different. They attract with story and wonderful acting.

Brad Pitt has always been a sex symbol. One of Hollywood hotties, that everyone wants. But he has proven to the audience that he is an outstanding actor. In films like Interview with the Vampire, Se7en, Twelve Monkeys, Figh Club he has proven that he is more than good looks, from the beginning of his acting carrier. And he is nod disappointing here. He is not the badass motherf*cker who will save the world. He is a former UN employee. His experience and intelligence guide him, and the love for his family.

And the other actors - Mirelle Enos, James Dales, Daniella Kertesz, they all are playing their roles as they should. You see people acting, like they are real people in a real situation like this. The wife will miss her husband, will want to hear his voice, but she will stay strong for her children. The captain will carry for his men, will know that this is war and knows the risk, but it has to be done. You can always find some flaws if you are looking, but no movie is perfect.

The rating in IMDB is 7,3. With 10 being the maximum, I think it's a decent rating. But I would give it an 8.