Maria went to yoga tonight, and I went to my favorite funky cinema in Bennington to see Brad Pitt star in “The War Against Z.” I liked the movie a lot, and I appreciated it quite a bit, just days after seeking the runaway mess “Man Of Steel.” I love going to the movies alone, it always feels peaceful and soothing to me.
It is rewarding to be reminded what a restrained and skilled director can do with a very particular genre and what a good actor like Brad Pitt can do in a hero’s role. This was a good antidote to “Man Of Steel,” a mess through and through. This is actually the first zombie movie I’ve seen since “Night Of The Living Dead.” Marc Foster handled it just right, I thought, he let us imagine the gore rather than overwhelm us with it, and he used computer animation in just the right way, to evoke horror, crowds, cities in turmoil, and a sense of being surrounded and overwhelmed, But Foster never lost sight of the very human story at the center of any “horror” movie, in this case a man trying to save the world and protect his family at the same time.
Pitt plays a reluctant and vulnerable superhero, an ex-U.N. disaster specialist who is living in Philadelphia with his wife and two children and is sick of disasters and ad venture. Suddenly, the world begins to come apart. The city is suddenly engulfed and the first half-hour of the movie is riveting watching Pitt – Gerry Lane – scramble to save his family. Hordes of the undead are storming almost every city in the world, including Lane’s hometown of Philadelphia, and no one knows where they came from or how to stop them. It quickly becomes clear they have taken over much of the world. The President and most senior members of the government are dead. It is up to some Navy Seals, some U.N. health workers and Pitt to try and stop the hordes.
Every zombie movie has one of the undead throwing him or herself against a car windshield and roaring and snapping at screaming humans. All across the globe, the zombies are on the march and Pitt, drawn back into service against his will, goes to Korea, then Israel, then England to try and find the source of the virus that has unleashed an awful plague on the world. On the way he is confronted with the rising menace and he handles his job with a lot more grace and intelligence than Superman did.
It is also refreshing to see a hero use wits and courage to try and save the world rather than spaceships, lasers and bombs. It is definitely a big-budget movie, but it doesn’t forget that less is sometimes more. It is a safe movie to take kids too, especially adolescents and teenagers.
The movie is scary, intense without every being horrific, gory or really frightening, just what a good zombie move ought to be. Foster also invokes the sense of menace and bad news that often shrouds our daily lives, worries about the planet, terrorism, collapsing economies. He is clearly using the zombies as a metaphor for the disconnection and uncertainty many people feel in their lives. Watching the news, following politics, it is easy to feel sometimes that our world is unraveling. The movie evokes this very intelligently. It is very refreshing to see a director use acting and plot and I don’t think there were more than a half-dozen explosions in the movie, most of them off in the distance. It is nice to see a good actor in control, able to carry the heavy weight of such a role.
Watching the movie, one can feel vulnerable and this one kept moving. I thought it was exciting, well acted, smartly directed. One reviewer said it was good scary fun. That is just right, I think.