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Created Jun 24, 2013 08:52PM PST • Edited Jun 14, 2014 11:48AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Beware the Zeeks. Or is it Zekes? Either way, zare’s lots of Zs in WWZ, zousands even, zillions maybe. Zale get you unless Brad Pitt has his way, which he will. He’s Brad Pitt. In turn, he gets your 10 bucks.

   Pitt plus a Zillion Zekes zequals Zoutrageous Box Office for World War Z, guaranteed.

   Fair enough. But how good a movie is it? Very good, more than good enough actually, just Znot Great.

   You see, Global Zombie Apocalypse is a very powerful concept, albeit one that weighs heavily on a film. Yet heavy doesn’t fully characterize the GZA in WWZ.

   Nor ludicrous. You have to combine them to form a certain lugubriousness, a heavy lunacy if you will. Heavy lunacy’s a tough thing to pull off and the gargantuan production often doesn’t. Not great, recall.

   Very Good is a solid start for the first World War Z however. The sequels could even rise to greatness. They’ve still got Brad the Dad as the hero, albeit he’s stuck with a fundamentally ridiculous premise.

   Finally a word about cultural resonance and the power of superstars. The first trailers started showing a month or so ago, just after Angelina Jolie had her brave surgery and Brad became even more an überDad. Seeing Brad the Dad playing family games in a Volvo wagon with a wife and little kids reflected on his real life situation. It’s rare for a manly icon in our media-soaked age to embrace the role of protector in the first place, let alone maintain his box office power afterwards. Fatherhood becomes Angie’s man, however.

   This is the second summer in a row that Brad’s played a Dad. He was Papa Pitt last summer in Moneyball.

   Consider him a father figure you can safely follow into a darkened theater. Zat’s something to count on!

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Brad Pitt plays a UN scout who does crazy stuff for a living, but for good, not for money or anything bourgeois like that. Nice work if you can get it. Oh right, it’s supposed to be an ideal role for our 21st Century King Cool. It is.

   Mireille Enos plays his wife, the role played in real life by Angelina Jolie.

   Brad’s role protecting Angie and being a total studmuffin of a Dad looms benevolently over this movie.

   Daniella Kertesz measures up to him as an indomitable agent for good. She’s one to keep an eye on.

   Several big name actors cameo only to get bumped off. Oops. Was that a plot spoiler?

   It’s a disaster movie, remember. Want to see more big names get knocked off? Contagion and This Is The End rival World War Z in offing the stars. Comes with the disastrous territory.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    Better as a book or a film? Having only seen it on screen, it makes cinematic sense for the story to unfold chronologically instead of backwards through reflection, as in the book. Yet the film doesn’t fully work.

    Perhaps the mental cinema that is a novel can better handle the fact that zombies are fundamentally ridiculous, better for comedy than drama. Each time a character of impeccable gravitas says “Zombie,” they gulp beforehand, as if preparing to jump the shark. Easier to sell that on the page, I’m guessing.

    That said, zombie killing has become one of the great entertainment sports of the 21st Century. Unfortunately WWZ isn’t as inventive in zombie killing as was Zombieland, to pick one example.

    Finally, like an undead Contagion, WWZ follows in the well-trod tropes of global disaster movies. The problem for WWZ is that it’s as much a global medical disaster movie as a zombie movie. So it has all the flaws of Contagion and the added weight of ridiculousness. Heavy Lunacy. Heavy Lunacy.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5

    The zousands of zombies are fake. The thousands of VFX crew are real, and really expensive.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.0

    Zombies exist to kill and be killed, er, killed again, or whatever the hell you do to off the undead. This makes for loads of cinematic fun, but isn’t for the squeamish.

17. Sex Innocent 1.4

18. Violence Monstrous 4.7

19. Rudeness Profane 2.8

21. Reality

    Supernatural 3.4

    Now about those zombies, where DO they get the energy? The superhuman strength? The strong teeth and gums? You never see ’em brush. Flossing? Fuggedaboudit.

    Not that zombies aren’t useful, as I examined reviewing Zombieland. Just that they’re ridiculous. Thus they work better in comedy than drama. Who’da thunk it.

    Finally, a pair of political observations:

    • Brad Pitt’s retired operative isn’t U.S., he’s U.N., making him post-nationalism personified. World Government elements run all through the movie, with U.N. paramilitary elements operating freely within the U.S. Unh, oh. Black helicopter alert!
    • WWZ intimates that the Global Zombie Apocalypse is triggered by global warming, a pandemic being just what the Doctor ordered for true believers in mankind’s Eco-guilt. This’ll show `em!

22. Circumstantial Supernatural 3.2

    Our heroes take off in a C-130 from a carrier in the Atlantic and land three cuts later in Korea. That’s halfway around the world in a prop plane. Said another way, they make a very fast 7,000 mile trip in a lumbering craft with a range of 1,000 miles. SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF ALERT

23. Biological Supernatural 3.9

24. Physical Supernatural 3.2