Why I hated World War Z
The movie, not the book. I loved the book. I almost walked out of the movie, and would have if I had not sunk $11 into it.
Spoilers ahead. But what does it matter? You shouldn't go to see this stinking pile of shit.
The film opens on Brad Pitt, a happy stay-at-home husband and father of two little girls, ContrivedPlotDevice and ScreechingLittleWuss. They are oh, so happy, especially now that Brad has left his former job, which apparently was really upsetting to his family.
Now they are in Philadelphia, which looks like Philadelphia but which has New York-style wall-to-wall traffic on Market Street. OK, we'll let that one go for now. They are in the car, and right away some commotion starts up ahead. Then an explosion. Brad gets out of the car and a cop pulls up and immediately gets run over by a garbage truck so powerful that it can plow through six solid blocks of stopped traffic and fling the cars left and right without slowing down. The driver seems to be having some sort of seizure, all flailing about and snarling.
Brad, Wife and the girls get out of the gridlocked car, while all around them is carnage. People screaming and running, and apparently attacking one another. Brad sees a cabbie get assaulted and bitten. It seems like a good idea to Brad to stand there counting. When he gets to 12, the cabbie is up and snarling and biting people. Ah...so I guess Brad knew all about the zombie invasion and that this cabbie was going to turn? No, he knows nothing of it. He just likes to start counting when he sees someone die, just in case.
So the family sees an RV with the door open and the keys conveniently inside which has been freed from traffic by the rampaging garbage truck. Zombies attack as soon as they get in, hurling themselves at the windows and trying to break in, which was kind of cool. Somehow all of the traffic opens up and within a few minutes the family is safely driving on a remote country road which Brad identifies as "95." It's here that Brad gets a call from his old friend the Secretary General of the UN (or something) who looks and talks just like Kofi Annan.
Oh, horror! ContrivedPlotDevice is having a serious asthma attack and nobody knows where her inhaler is. We need a new one! Let's drive to Newark, right into the middle of the city, to find one! That's the only place! So there is no traffic at all getting into Newark, which could only be possible during the Apocalypse, and they go to a big pharmacy that is being ravaged by looters. We are treated to ScreechingLittleWuss wailing and screaming like Carol Anne and whining, "Daddy, I'm scared!" every sixty seconds while the medicine is procured, and when they get outside -- oh, damn, the RV is gone! Maybe we should have locked it and taken the keys. After all, that's how we got it, right?
We are in danger! Quick, there's an apartment building with lights on! So Mom grabs a bunch of flares from the RV (apparently, because she magically has them a few moments later), and they go into the apartment building, which now has no lights on, just flickering emergency lights like a scene from Doom. They can hear the zombies snarling in the darkness. Rather than finding a nice hotel that has lights, they continue until ScreechingLittleWuss wanders off alone into the darkness. Oh, but clever girl has found a nice Hispanic family who is standing wide-eyed in their open doorway. They invite the Brad Family inside.
Brad calls Kofi Annan and asks for evac, and we find out that Brad is actually a highly-trained UN military operative (I didn't know they had those, but OK). He wants Kofi's help, but no, I'm NOT going to work for you again. Nope.
So in the morning a helicopter comes, and the family must make their way through zombie-infested stairwells to the roof, since apparently the windows do not open in this apartment building. Hispanic Family opts to remain behind, but oh, they get eaten off-camera, and their little boy runs up to join the Brad Family. He's now a member of the Brad Family, and has no speaking lines and is barely acknowledged throughout the rest of the film.
The one, single thing in the film I liked: Brad fights a zombie and its blood splashes into his mouth. When he gets to the roof he orders his family back and then stands at the very edge of the roof. He starts counting. Reaches 12, realizes he won't turn, and shakily steps back from the edge of the roof. I liked that. So now we know that the zombie virus is not orally transmissible...even though it is carried in the mouth of the zombie. OK, let's just put that out of our minds.
So now we fly 200 miles offshore to a huge aircraft carrier battle group, which is UN Mobile Command. We find that the whole world is infected and governments are collapsing, the President is dead (eaten by the Joint Chiefs, I thought I heard them say). Brad is taken to Commander StickInTheAss, who immediately deduces that Brad is the only man who can fight the Zombie holocaust because, you know, Brad is from Philly, or worked for the UN or something.
Brad: "No, I'm not going back to work for you."
Kofi Annan: "But Brad, you are the only man who can save the world from this horror. Millions of people will die if you do not."
Brad: "No. I don't like you."
Commander StickInTheAss: "We'll throw your family off of this ship and send them back to Philly."
Brad: "When do I start?"
That's our Brad. Fuck millions of people and the possible salvation of all Mankind, but when it comes to my tiresome little girls and whiny, self-absorbed wife? Yeah, let's go!
So Brad gives Wife a cel phone. It's a magic cel phone that never needs recharging and can get coverage anywhere on the planet with no roaming charges (maybe it's a special UN satellite phone. OK). He promises to call her every day.
Where to? Korea. The first communication received by the US came from a military base in Korea. Brad is to go there and escort a Famous Scientist there, because if they can find the source, if they can find Patient Zero, then they can fix everything. See, that's how epidemiology works. As soon as you find Patient Zero, you can cure the disease. It's like killing the Original Vampire. You follow me?
So they take off and fly nonstop, without refueling, in a military cargo plane from 200 miles off the coast of the USA to Korea. Maybe our planes can do that, and the pilot did say that they were "on fumes" when they came in to the approach. The runway lights are still glowing, but go out as soon as the plane stops.
Brad, Famous Scientist and four redshirts carefully emerge down the plane's tail ramp. Apparently there is no possible way that danger can come from the front of the plane, behind them, because the redshirts never turn around once. Oh, no! Zombies rush out of the darkness! The redshirts are torn apart, and Famous Scientist panics and runs up the ramp and slips and accidentally shoots himself in the head. Really. So now he's dead. It's just Brad and the pilot and oh, look -- here come some soldiers who are hiding in a bunker in the base to kill the zombies. Nice timing, guys.
So now we're in the bunker. Captain Smirk explains that the zombies are attracted by sound and that headshots take them down. He shows them Patient Zero: a burned-out skeleton in a room surrounded by five other charred skeletons. Brad says, "Where's the doctor who found the patient?" and Captain Smirk points to a nearly cremated body, all except for one finger...which is twitching! AIIEEEE!
Wait. Headshots work, so once you kill the brain the zombie dies. But there's nothing left of the head and no flesh attaching this finger. Why is it moving? Is this one of those brain-eating zombies from that knockoff movie? No time to explain! We must keep moving! Brad is determined to see this through to the end, even though he's not a scientist and has no idea what he's doing or what he's looking for, only that he must find Patient Zero. Captain Smirk tells him, "Then you need to go to Israel."
Why Israel? The Israelis intercepted a communication from India that mentioned the word "rakshasah," which in this movie (and nowhere else) clearly means "Romero-styled zombie." So the Israelis instantly knew that the Zombie Apocalypse was upon us, and they built a giant 100-foot-high wall around Jerusalem using super quick-setting concrete because they apparently built this thing in the matter of a week and the Palestinians were somehow cool with Jerusalem being completely walled off and didn't put up a fuss.
We must go to Israel, Brad says! "Not us," says Captain Smirk. "We'll just stay here because, you know, this place isn't so bad." So Brad and some more redshirts get onto bikes, because bikes are quiet, and they ride out to the plane. Quiet, everyone. Quiet! Zombies are attracted by noise. Be quiet now.
RING!!! RING!!! Brad hasn't called his wife in the last 15 minutes so she's worried, so she decides to call him. Highly-trained UN military operative doesn't know enough to tell his wife, "DO NOT call me in the field," nor has he figured out how to put the magic UN phone on vibrate. The zombies go nuts and kill everyone except for Brad, the pilot and Captain Smirk. Captain Smirk gets bitten so he takes the honorable way out. BANG.
So Brad flies to Jerusalem. He asks StereotypicalIsraeliMilitaryGuy why they would wall off the city just because someone in India said the word "zombie" (actually "rakshasah") on the radio. S.I.M.G. then launches into this dissertation about if nine men say yes, then man #10 must also say yes, and he is man #10, and the audience is saying, "Wait...what?" I turned and looked at a lady who was sitting two seats away and she just gave me a big shrug and shook her head and went back to her knitting. Yes, she had taken out her knitting and was quietly making a sweater while the movie was going on.
OK, Jerusalem is surrounded by a massive wall with fortified habitrail-tunnels leading into it (all thrown up in a week with the blessing of the Arab world even before anyone else knew that the raksha...er, the zombies were coming). They are letting in everybody, checking their eyes first because the first thing that happens when you turn is that your eyes go all gluey. They are even letting in Palestinians. Everyone is cool with this. Then the Palestinians decide that they want to hold an outdoor concert. A girl grabs a microphone and they start singing and wailing and carrying on.
Sound? Oh, no! Sound! Sound attracts them! The roar of helicopters and the din of a million terrified people isn't enough to wake up the zombies outside, but a concert? These zombies are music lovers. They just want to get down and boogie! They rush the wall and start piling up in a writhing tower like ants (which was also kind of a cool concept). They get over the wall and start pouring into the city, and now Jerusalem is breached and there is nowhere to run. EEK!
S.I.M.G. has somehow gotten the idea that Brad is important because he orders two soldiers to risk their lives to get him to the airfield. There's a lengthy retreat through the zombie hordes; one soldier gets bitten and Brad hacks off her arm, but that's ok because she'll be fine in ten minutes once she spontaneously gets over the shock. Brad sees two curious things: (1) an old man in his pajamas, standing in the midst of the zombie horde, being completely ignored by them. (2) a very skinny kid who is likewise being bypassed by the zombies. How odd, the audience thinks. This must be important since the camera is lingering on them for so long.
Oh no! The military jet takes off without Brad! Its pilot is the only person in Israel who is not a complete fucking moron. Aha! Here's a commercial jetliner on taxi for takeoff. Brad and the soldiers rush the aircraft and flag it down. The pilot generously stops and lets in these gun-toting wild-eyed people even while the fight rages around them, because you know, there's no real hurry.
They take off, leaving behind a scene of horror as zombies overrun the people who had also tried to flag down the jet but were ignored, probably because they didn't have guns and were not Brad Pitt.
Now we're on the plane. Everything seems safe. Brad can't help thinking of lingering shots #1 and #2, and he has a revelation! He goes to the cockpit and bangs on the door, and since the events of September 11th have long been forgotten the pilot happily lets him in. Brad gives the pilot the phone and says, "Here, I just dialed Kofi Annan. He's going to tell you to fly to England where there's a World Health Organization facility."
The pilot comes back and says, "Your phone is dead." Thinking quickly, Brad shoots it in the head to keep it from turning! No, not really. The phone's battery has at last run out. But the pilot still got the order from a fellow who claimed to be the Secretary General of the United Nations, so he says, "Why not?"
Holy shit! A zombie was hiding in the galley elevator of the plane! A flight attendant accidentally lets it in, and the whole aircraft is soon snarling and gnashing. Only Brad and Sgt. One-Arm of the Israeli Army (who is perfectly fine after downing half a fifth of vodka to numb the pain) are alive. Brad grabs one of Sgt. One-Arm's grenades, pulls the pin, throws it, and blows a hole in the side of the aircraft, which despite being maintaind by Air Ickystan manages to stay together and doesn't break up from the massive gaping hole in its fuselage. All of the zombies are sucked out and sprinkled across the English countryside to spread the infection further, but Brad's not concerned about that.
The plane crashes, and only Brad and Sgt. One-Arm survive (very resilient, these two). Brad has been impaled through the gut by a massive chunk of metal at last six inches across, but don't worry. He'll be just fine in a few days, and even impaled like that he's able to walk untold miles across the zombie-sprinkled English countryside to reach the WHO headquarters, where he promptly passes out.
He wakes up and sees the Welshiest Welshman on the planet, who tells him, "You've been out for three days. Now who the hell are you, Strange Man That We Don't Trust But Whom We Brought In And Patched Up And Kept Tied Up Anyway For Three Days And There's No Catheter Or Bedpan In Sight And Now You're Perfectly Well?" Brad defiantly has them call Kofi Annan back on his phone.
His phone...which was clearly dead...
...and now it isn't...
...ZOMBIE PHONE!!! AIIEEEEE!!!!
No, really. The Magic UN Phone now works fine. Maybe the WHO happens to carry the right charger for Magic UN Phones.
Brad tells the WHO doctors his revelation. The people he saw? He believes that they were sick. The virus wants strong, healthy hosts, and zombies will bypass anyone who is sick who isn't going to be a good host. It's a decent theory. Apparently having a six-inch chunk of metal speared through your gut or having your arm lopped off doesn't make you weak enough for the virus. No, it can't detect endorphins or pain or stress hormones in its victim, but it can smell a stuffy nose from a mile away. Nope, don't want that one.
Brad wants the WHO to give him a horrible disease, something ghastly and fatal -- but curable, so he'll survive it. "Oh, you want the stuff we store in B-wing," they tell him. "It's crawling with zombies. But it's ok. We'll just be very quiet and we'll wrap our forearms in magazines and duct-tape them."
Now, that was actually pretty clever. Use a rolled-up magazine as bite armor for your forearm. But they must not have a lot of magazines at the WHO, because everyone just protected one forearm. I would have torn open the recycling cabinet and wrapped my whole body. But anyway.
Knowing that zombies are attracted by zound, Brad (who suffered no internal damage or infection from the jagged piece of metal), Sgt. One-Arm (who is just fine and in peak fighting condition) and one of the WHO doctors who knows where the cabinet is all go stumbling about, kicking every single discarded soda can and stepping on every last piece of broken glass and crashing into every open filing cabinet that they can, until Brad gets separated from the duo and somehow manages to find himself right in the exact laboratory that WHO Doctor said Brad would never possibly find without his help. He goes into the cold room where all the germs are kept, and grabbing a bin, starts pulling all of them out of their desktop storage cabinets and throwing them into the bin. It never occurs to him simply to pick up the 15-pound cabinet and carry it with him. He'd rather throw these fragile glass vials into a bucket where none of them could possibly break and release their deadly contents.
GASP! A zombie scientist is now right outside, snarling and gnashing and being scary. Brad cannot get out. So he randomly picks a vial from the bin, finds a syringe which for some reason is stored in the cold room with the germs, and injects himself.
A short time later (it couldn't have been very long because it is freezing cold in that room and Brad hasn't turned the slightest shade of blue and isn't even shivering), Brad decides that the germ has had enough time to work its magic on him. He opens the door. Zombie Scientist rushes in, sniffs at him, says, "Aw, fuck," and just goes gnashing somewhere else.
Brad has saved the day! Luckily he remembers which vial he stuck himself with, so the WHO doctors conveniently administer an antidote (or something -- they stick him and it's not clear what with) that they happen to store in the office wing, since the lab wing where the germs are kept wouldn't make sense, right? Or maybe it was more of the same germ to give him a boost. Who the fuck knows? By this point I was looking at my watch every 30 seconds saying, "Is this turkey done yet?"
Now word flashes across the world! We hear in broken radio reports mention of "meningitis" and "HIV." That is apparently the plan. Infect soldiers with horrible diseases like meningitis (or, God forbid, HIV) and then the zombies won't pay attention to them. Despite having meningitis or dengue fever or SARS, these soldiers will not feel sick. They'll feel just spiffy and can happily go out and slaughter zombies and will be back in time for tea and maybe a shot of antibiotics before any of those nasty symptoms show up.
I read a book called World War Z by the brilliant Max (son of Mel) Brooks. I refuse to believe that he let them put the title to this turd of a movie. I think that they've gotten him locked in a room somewhere and refused to give him food or water until he signed over the rights. Nowhere in this flimsy film did we see the tragic retreat to the Arctic, the horrifying Redeker Plan, the nightmare of a downed flyer being guided along a zombie- and car-choked bridge by a mysterious woman's voice on the radio. All we saw was Brad Pitt leaping bravely over gaping plot-holes while inexplicably clinging to an annoyingly useless family that I personally would have set on fire in the first ten minutes of the film, until he single-handedly saves all of Mankind by giving them AIDS.
I want my $11 back. And my 2 hours. And the popcorn was stale, even.
Fuck.
Spoilers ahead. But what does it matter? You shouldn't go to see this stinking pile of shit.
The film opens on Brad Pitt, a happy stay-at-home husband and father of two little girls, ContrivedPlotDevice and ScreechingLittleWuss. They are oh, so happy, especially now that Brad has left his former job, which apparently was really upsetting to his family.
Now they are in Philadelphia, which looks like Philadelphia but which has New York-style wall-to-wall traffic on Market Street. OK, we'll let that one go for now. They are in the car, and right away some commotion starts up ahead. Then an explosion. Brad gets out of the car and a cop pulls up and immediately gets run over by a garbage truck so powerful that it can plow through six solid blocks of stopped traffic and fling the cars left and right without slowing down. The driver seems to be having some sort of seizure, all flailing about and snarling.
Brad, Wife and the girls get out of the gridlocked car, while all around them is carnage. People screaming and running, and apparently attacking one another. Brad sees a cabbie get assaulted and bitten. It seems like a good idea to Brad to stand there counting. When he gets to 12, the cabbie is up and snarling and biting people. Ah...so I guess Brad knew all about the zombie invasion and that this cabbie was going to turn? No, he knows nothing of it. He just likes to start counting when he sees someone die, just in case.
So the family sees an RV with the door open and the keys conveniently inside which has been freed from traffic by the rampaging garbage truck. Zombies attack as soon as they get in, hurling themselves at the windows and trying to break in, which was kind of cool. Somehow all of the traffic opens up and within a few minutes the family is safely driving on a remote country road which Brad identifies as "95." It's here that Brad gets a call from his old friend the Secretary General of the UN (or something) who looks and talks just like Kofi Annan.
Oh, horror! ContrivedPlotDevice is having a serious asthma attack and nobody knows where her inhaler is. We need a new one! Let's drive to Newark, right into the middle of the city, to find one! That's the only place! So there is no traffic at all getting into Newark, which could only be possible during the Apocalypse, and they go to a big pharmacy that is being ravaged by looters. We are treated to ScreechingLittleWuss wailing and screaming like Carol Anne and whining, "Daddy, I'm scared!" every sixty seconds while the medicine is procured, and when they get outside -- oh, damn, the RV is gone! Maybe we should have locked it and taken the keys. After all, that's how we got it, right?
We are in danger! Quick, there's an apartment building with lights on! So Mom grabs a bunch of flares from the RV (apparently, because she magically has them a few moments later), and they go into the apartment building, which now has no lights on, just flickering emergency lights like a scene from Doom. They can hear the zombies snarling in the darkness. Rather than finding a nice hotel that has lights, they continue until ScreechingLittleWuss wanders off alone into the darkness. Oh, but clever girl has found a nice Hispanic family who is standing wide-eyed in their open doorway. They invite the Brad Family inside.
Brad calls Kofi Annan and asks for evac, and we find out that Brad is actually a highly-trained UN military operative (I didn't know they had those, but OK). He wants Kofi's help, but no, I'm NOT going to work for you again. Nope.
So in the morning a helicopter comes, and the family must make their way through zombie-infested stairwells to the roof, since apparently the windows do not open in this apartment building. Hispanic Family opts to remain behind, but oh, they get eaten off-camera, and their little boy runs up to join the Brad Family. He's now a member of the Brad Family, and has no speaking lines and is barely acknowledged throughout the rest of the film.
The one, single thing in the film I liked: Brad fights a zombie and its blood splashes into his mouth. When he gets to the roof he orders his family back and then stands at the very edge of the roof. He starts counting. Reaches 12, realizes he won't turn, and shakily steps back from the edge of the roof. I liked that. So now we know that the zombie virus is not orally transmissible...even though it is carried in the mouth of the zombie. OK, let's just put that out of our minds.
So now we fly 200 miles offshore to a huge aircraft carrier battle group, which is UN Mobile Command. We find that the whole world is infected and governments are collapsing, the President is dead (eaten by the Joint Chiefs, I thought I heard them say). Brad is taken to Commander StickInTheAss, who immediately deduces that Brad is the only man who can fight the Zombie holocaust because, you know, Brad is from Philly, or worked for the UN or something.
Brad: "No, I'm not going back to work for you."
Kofi Annan: "But Brad, you are the only man who can save the world from this horror. Millions of people will die if you do not."
Brad: "No. I don't like you."
Commander StickInTheAss: "We'll throw your family off of this ship and send them back to Philly."
Brad: "When do I start?"
That's our Brad. Fuck millions of people and the possible salvation of all Mankind, but when it comes to my tiresome little girls and whiny, self-absorbed wife? Yeah, let's go!
So Brad gives Wife a cel phone. It's a magic cel phone that never needs recharging and can get coverage anywhere on the planet with no roaming charges (maybe it's a special UN satellite phone. OK). He promises to call her every day.
Where to? Korea. The first communication received by the US came from a military base in Korea. Brad is to go there and escort a Famous Scientist there, because if they can find the source, if they can find Patient Zero, then they can fix everything. See, that's how epidemiology works. As soon as you find Patient Zero, you can cure the disease. It's like killing the Original Vampire. You follow me?
So they take off and fly nonstop, without refueling, in a military cargo plane from 200 miles off the coast of the USA to Korea. Maybe our planes can do that, and the pilot did say that they were "on fumes" when they came in to the approach. The runway lights are still glowing, but go out as soon as the plane stops.
Brad, Famous Scientist and four redshirts carefully emerge down the plane's tail ramp. Apparently there is no possible way that danger can come from the front of the plane, behind them, because the redshirts never turn around once. Oh, no! Zombies rush out of the darkness! The redshirts are torn apart, and Famous Scientist panics and runs up the ramp and slips and accidentally shoots himself in the head. Really. So now he's dead. It's just Brad and the pilot and oh, look -- here come some soldiers who are hiding in a bunker in the base to kill the zombies. Nice timing, guys.
So now we're in the bunker. Captain Smirk explains that the zombies are attracted by sound and that headshots take them down. He shows them Patient Zero: a burned-out skeleton in a room surrounded by five other charred skeletons. Brad says, "Where's the doctor who found the patient?" and Captain Smirk points to a nearly cremated body, all except for one finger...which is twitching! AIIEEEE!
Wait. Headshots work, so once you kill the brain the zombie dies. But there's nothing left of the head and no flesh attaching this finger. Why is it moving? Is this one of those brain-eating zombies from that knockoff movie? No time to explain! We must keep moving! Brad is determined to see this through to the end, even though he's not a scientist and has no idea what he's doing or what he's looking for, only that he must find Patient Zero. Captain Smirk tells him, "Then you need to go to Israel."
Why Israel? The Israelis intercepted a communication from India that mentioned the word "rakshasah," which in this movie (and nowhere else) clearly means "Romero-styled zombie." So the Israelis instantly knew that the Zombie Apocalypse was upon us, and they built a giant 100-foot-high wall around Jerusalem using super quick-setting concrete because they apparently built this thing in the matter of a week and the Palestinians were somehow cool with Jerusalem being completely walled off and didn't put up a fuss.
We must go to Israel, Brad says! "Not us," says Captain Smirk. "We'll just stay here because, you know, this place isn't so bad." So Brad and some more redshirts get onto bikes, because bikes are quiet, and they ride out to the plane. Quiet, everyone. Quiet! Zombies are attracted by noise. Be quiet now.
RING!!! RING!!! Brad hasn't called his wife in the last 15 minutes so she's worried, so she decides to call him. Highly-trained UN military operative doesn't know enough to tell his wife, "DO NOT call me in the field," nor has he figured out how to put the magic UN phone on vibrate. The zombies go nuts and kill everyone except for Brad, the pilot and Captain Smirk. Captain Smirk gets bitten so he takes the honorable way out. BANG.
So Brad flies to Jerusalem. He asks StereotypicalIsraeliMilitaryGuy why they would wall off the city just because someone in India said the word "zombie" (actually "rakshasah") on the radio. S.I.M.G. then launches into this dissertation about if nine men say yes, then man #10 must also say yes, and he is man #10, and the audience is saying, "Wait...what?" I turned and looked at a lady who was sitting two seats away and she just gave me a big shrug and shook her head and went back to her knitting. Yes, she had taken out her knitting and was quietly making a sweater while the movie was going on.
OK, Jerusalem is surrounded by a massive wall with fortified habitrail-tunnels leading into it (all thrown up in a week with the blessing of the Arab world even before anyone else knew that the raksha...er, the zombies were coming). They are letting in everybody, checking their eyes first because the first thing that happens when you turn is that your eyes go all gluey. They are even letting in Palestinians. Everyone is cool with this. Then the Palestinians decide that they want to hold an outdoor concert. A girl grabs a microphone and they start singing and wailing and carrying on.
Sound? Oh, no! Sound! Sound attracts them! The roar of helicopters and the din of a million terrified people isn't enough to wake up the zombies outside, but a concert? These zombies are music lovers. They just want to get down and boogie! They rush the wall and start piling up in a writhing tower like ants (which was also kind of a cool concept). They get over the wall and start pouring into the city, and now Jerusalem is breached and there is nowhere to run. EEK!
S.I.M.G. has somehow gotten the idea that Brad is important because he orders two soldiers to risk their lives to get him to the airfield. There's a lengthy retreat through the zombie hordes; one soldier gets bitten and Brad hacks off her arm, but that's ok because she'll be fine in ten minutes once she spontaneously gets over the shock. Brad sees two curious things: (1) an old man in his pajamas, standing in the midst of the zombie horde, being completely ignored by them. (2) a very skinny kid who is likewise being bypassed by the zombies. How odd, the audience thinks. This must be important since the camera is lingering on them for so long.
Oh no! The military jet takes off without Brad! Its pilot is the only person in Israel who is not a complete fucking moron. Aha! Here's a commercial jetliner on taxi for takeoff. Brad and the soldiers rush the aircraft and flag it down. The pilot generously stops and lets in these gun-toting wild-eyed people even while the fight rages around them, because you know, there's no real hurry.
They take off, leaving behind a scene of horror as zombies overrun the people who had also tried to flag down the jet but were ignored, probably because they didn't have guns and were not Brad Pitt.
Now we're on the plane. Everything seems safe. Brad can't help thinking of lingering shots #1 and #2, and he has a revelation! He goes to the cockpit and bangs on the door, and since the events of September 11th have long been forgotten the pilot happily lets him in. Brad gives the pilot the phone and says, "Here, I just dialed Kofi Annan. He's going to tell you to fly to England where there's a World Health Organization facility."
The pilot comes back and says, "Your phone is dead." Thinking quickly, Brad shoots it in the head to keep it from turning! No, not really. The phone's battery has at last run out. But the pilot still got the order from a fellow who claimed to be the Secretary General of the United Nations, so he says, "Why not?"
Holy shit! A zombie was hiding in the galley elevator of the plane! A flight attendant accidentally lets it in, and the whole aircraft is soon snarling and gnashing. Only Brad and Sgt. One-Arm of the Israeli Army (who is perfectly fine after downing half a fifth of vodka to numb the pain) are alive. Brad grabs one of Sgt. One-Arm's grenades, pulls the pin, throws it, and blows a hole in the side of the aircraft, which despite being maintaind by Air Ickystan manages to stay together and doesn't break up from the massive gaping hole in its fuselage. All of the zombies are sucked out and sprinkled across the English countryside to spread the infection further, but Brad's not concerned about that.
The plane crashes, and only Brad and Sgt. One-Arm survive (very resilient, these two). Brad has been impaled through the gut by a massive chunk of metal at last six inches across, but don't worry. He'll be just fine in a few days, and even impaled like that he's able to walk untold miles across the zombie-sprinkled English countryside to reach the WHO headquarters, where he promptly passes out.
He wakes up and sees the Welshiest Welshman on the planet, who tells him, "You've been out for three days. Now who the hell are you, Strange Man That We Don't Trust But Whom We Brought In And Patched Up And Kept Tied Up Anyway For Three Days And There's No Catheter Or Bedpan In Sight And Now You're Perfectly Well?" Brad defiantly has them call Kofi Annan back on his phone.
His phone...which was clearly dead...
...and now it isn't...
...ZOMBIE PHONE!!! AIIEEEEE!!!!
No, really. The Magic UN Phone now works fine. Maybe the WHO happens to carry the right charger for Magic UN Phones.
Brad tells the WHO doctors his revelation. The people he saw? He believes that they were sick. The virus wants strong, healthy hosts, and zombies will bypass anyone who is sick who isn't going to be a good host. It's a decent theory. Apparently having a six-inch chunk of metal speared through your gut or having your arm lopped off doesn't make you weak enough for the virus. No, it can't detect endorphins or pain or stress hormones in its victim, but it can smell a stuffy nose from a mile away. Nope, don't want that one.
Brad wants the WHO to give him a horrible disease, something ghastly and fatal -- but curable, so he'll survive it. "Oh, you want the stuff we store in B-wing," they tell him. "It's crawling with zombies. But it's ok. We'll just be very quiet and we'll wrap our forearms in magazines and duct-tape them."
Now, that was actually pretty clever. Use a rolled-up magazine as bite armor for your forearm. But they must not have a lot of magazines at the WHO, because everyone just protected one forearm. I would have torn open the recycling cabinet and wrapped my whole body. But anyway.
Knowing that zombies are attracted by zound, Brad (who suffered no internal damage or infection from the jagged piece of metal), Sgt. One-Arm (who is just fine and in peak fighting condition) and one of the WHO doctors who knows where the cabinet is all go stumbling about, kicking every single discarded soda can and stepping on every last piece of broken glass and crashing into every open filing cabinet that they can, until Brad gets separated from the duo and somehow manages to find himself right in the exact laboratory that WHO Doctor said Brad would never possibly find without his help. He goes into the cold room where all the germs are kept, and grabbing a bin, starts pulling all of them out of their desktop storage cabinets and throwing them into the bin. It never occurs to him simply to pick up the 15-pound cabinet and carry it with him. He'd rather throw these fragile glass vials into a bucket where none of them could possibly break and release their deadly contents.
GASP! A zombie scientist is now right outside, snarling and gnashing and being scary. Brad cannot get out. So he randomly picks a vial from the bin, finds a syringe which for some reason is stored in the cold room with the germs, and injects himself.
A short time later (it couldn't have been very long because it is freezing cold in that room and Brad hasn't turned the slightest shade of blue and isn't even shivering), Brad decides that the germ has had enough time to work its magic on him. He opens the door. Zombie Scientist rushes in, sniffs at him, says, "Aw, fuck," and just goes gnashing somewhere else.
Brad has saved the day! Luckily he remembers which vial he stuck himself with, so the WHO doctors conveniently administer an antidote (or something -- they stick him and it's not clear what with) that they happen to store in the office wing, since the lab wing where the germs are kept wouldn't make sense, right? Or maybe it was more of the same germ to give him a boost. Who the fuck knows? By this point I was looking at my watch every 30 seconds saying, "Is this turkey done yet?"
Now word flashes across the world! We hear in broken radio reports mention of "meningitis" and "HIV." That is apparently the plan. Infect soldiers with horrible diseases like meningitis (or, God forbid, HIV) and then the zombies won't pay attention to them. Despite having meningitis or dengue fever or SARS, these soldiers will not feel sick. They'll feel just spiffy and can happily go out and slaughter zombies and will be back in time for tea and maybe a shot of antibiotics before any of those nasty symptoms show up.
I read a book called World War Z by the brilliant Max (son of Mel) Brooks. I refuse to believe that he let them put the title to this turd of a movie. I think that they've gotten him locked in a room somewhere and refused to give him food or water until he signed over the rights. Nowhere in this flimsy film did we see the tragic retreat to the Arctic, the horrifying Redeker Plan, the nightmare of a downed flyer being guided along a zombie- and car-choked bridge by a mysterious woman's voice on the radio. All we saw was Brad Pitt leaping bravely over gaping plot-holes while inexplicably clinging to an annoyingly useless family that I personally would have set on fire in the first ten minutes of the film, until he single-handedly saves all of Mankind by giving them AIDS.
I want my $11 back. And my 2 hours. And the popcorn was stale, even.
Fuck.