‘World War Z’: Flesh-rippers come at you fast, and so does this globe-racing flick
June 22, 2013
Zombie apocalypse and anything vampire seems to be the hot ticket out of Hollywood these days. The subtext that we prey on each other and that life is a precious and fragile thing is a piquant notion that gets magnified to its fullest when examining how man comports himself as civilization crumbles.
Sans rules and with limited resources, what would you do? Snatch and grab, help out or hole up doomsday-prepper style?
That’s the special sauce that makes any apocalypse-cum-horror flick grip the road. Real people, supernatural horror, deep shit. George Romero’s seminal “Night of the Living Dead” was more about the dynamics and dissent among a band of survivors barricaded in a farmhouse than it was about the throng of shambling flesh scratching at the walls. Decades later, guys such as Danny Boyle (“28 Days Later”) and Zack Snyder (the 2004 remake of Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead”) got the nifty idea to make the dead move at warp speed. Continue reading
Pot humor and pop-up party guests such as Rihanna keep the slow-moving premise (Baruchel also hates Hill and is a bit of whining wet noodle to boot) alive, though there are nuggets of WTF humor that snap you out of the stupor, including Michael Cera (yup, the anemic, sweet wimp from “Juno”) doing blow and getting a rim job in the bathroom while sipping an effete cocktail he seems to relish more than the sex act. 
One major early steppingstone was the 2004 remake of George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” which featured an eclectic cast (Ving Rhames and Sarah Polley) and zombies that could run at full tilt. Danny Boyle had done that bit before and better with “28 Days Later …” and there’s really no one who can out-shamble Romero in the walking dead genre he pretty much invented. But sure enough, in the maddening, flesh-ripping mayhem, Snyder had carved out his niche as a hyperactive visual stylist. 
The premise of a wonk working for a private intelligence firm to protect corporations and the like from social terrorists, unscrupulous competitors and till-fleecing insiders is intriguing and builds nicely at the onset. It’s just the mechanics and fruition that get the pink slip. 
Most people would envy such heavy choices, but this is the third (and perhaps final) episode of Richard Linklater’s “Before” series and another cheeky exercise in endless talk, philosophical what-ifs and passive self-indulgence, which isn’t bad, mind you, it’s just not a real thing for most people. 
If you’re wondering why the actor, who holds an obvious penchant for sci-fi, would jump in the water with a man on his last breath, the answer is likely his son. “After Earth” is not a Will Smith movie, but a Jaden Smith movie. The young thespian held his own with dad in the underrated and wholly affecting pull-yourself-up drama “The Pursuit of Happyness” and was effective in “The Karate Kid” reboot. But this, this is Jaden’s coming out party, a big-screen bar mitzvah for Papa Smith to declare to the world, “My son is an actor.”
For What it's Worth 