Something the writers and Forster have cribbed well from the Romero playbook: They waste little time with scene-setting niceties, plunging us straight into the thick of zombie mayhem, and, Pitt notwithstanding, they donвЂ™t afford anyone star treatment. PHOTOS: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie Attend вЂWorld War ZвЂ™ Premiere And from there, вЂњWorld War ZвЂќ hopscotches the globe, as Gerry (in the company of various military escorts) searches for the proverbial вЂњpatient zeroвЂќ and the possibility of a cure.

military, Thierry wastes no time in giving Gerry an ultimatum: Go back into the war zone on the U.N.вЂ™s behalf, or else be sent right back to zombie-infested Philly with his family in tow. At this de facto command center for what remains of the U.S. (The generally arresting cinematography is credited solely to Michael Bay collaborator Ben Seresin, though the pic was begun by Oscar winner Robert Richardson.)ДЄdapted by a small army of screenwriters from the bestselling novel by Max (son of Mel) Brooks, the pic abandons its source materialвЂ™s choral вЂњoral historyвЂќ structure to hone in on the Lanes, who, after once again negotiating a narrow escape, find themselves ensconced in the relative safety of an aircraft carrier somewhere in the Atlantic.

boss, Thierry (the excellent South African actor Fana Mokoena), but not before waiting out the night in a rundown apartment building transformed by Forster into a skin-crawling succession of winding, shadowy corridors and flickering fluorescent bulbs. Fleeing in a stolen camper, they hightail it to Newark, where they await extraction from GerryвЂ™s former U.N. We first seem them wreaking havoc on a downtown Philly traffic jam - a genuinely spectacular and unsettling orgy of mob panic from which world-weary ex-United Nations investigator Gerry Lane (Pitt) barely emerges with his wife, Karen ( Mireille Enos), two young daughters and own body fully intact. Not that any makeshift solution lasts for long in вЂњWorld War Z,вЂќ whose undead prove terrifyingly hardy and lightning-quick, sprinting into spastic action when they sense fresh meat is near and turning their victims into fellow travelers in a matter of seconds. descends into chaos pretty early on, while the two nations best equipped for the coming onslaught turn out to be Israel and North Korea - the former by building an enormous wall, the latter by extracting the teeth of its entire population. In what may be taken as an affront by the America First crowd, the old U.S. Significantly expanding the claustrophobic geography of most zombie pics, the aptly titled вЂњWorld War ZвЂќ doesnвЂ™t have a particular polemical axe to grind so much as it seeks to imagine how the worldвЂ™s ideologically disparate peoples and governments would respond if great masses of the populi did suddenly turn into rabid, flesh-eating beasties. occupation of Haiti (1932вЂ™s Bela Lugosi starrer вЂњWhite ZombieвЂќ) to the upheaval of the Vietnam/civil rights era (вЂњNight of the Living DeadвЂќ) and the bio-panics of the late 20th century (вЂњ28 Days Later,вЂќ вЂњResident EvilвЂќ). Showing few visible signs of the massive rewrites, reshoots and other post-production patchwork that delayed its release from December 2012, this sleekly crafted, often nail-biting tale of global zombiepocalypse clicks on both visceral and emotional levels, resulting in an unusually serious-minded summer entertainment whose ideal audience might be described as comicbook fanboys who also listen to вЂњDemocracy Now.вЂќ Opening a week apart from the more four-quadrant-friendly вЂњMan of SteelвЂќ in most markets, вЂњ World War ZвЂќ should post solid enough numbers at home and abroad, but with a rumored final cost well north of $200 million, itвЂ™ll need more than a bit of kryptonite up its sleeve to push far into profitability.ДЄ flexible metaphor for all manner of social, cultural and political maladies, the zombie genre has, over the decades, been employed as an analogue for everything from the U.S. Rising from an early grave of negative pre-release publicity, director Marc Forster and producer-star Brad PittвЂ™s much-maligned вЂњWorld War ZвЂќ emerges as a surprisingly smart, gripping and imaginative addition to the zombie-movie canon, owing as much to scientific disaster movies like вЂњThe China SyndromeвЂќ and вЂњ ContagionвЂќ as it does to undead ur-texts like the collected works of George Romero.

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