Movie Review: World War Z

Back in February I had a post on this blog about how I "don't do horror."  And I still don't but I decided to get World War Z from Netflix despite it being labeled a horror movie.  It wasn't really a horror movie, more like an action thriller with some horror aspects.  And it was a pretty good movie with intense action, scary but not over-the-top gory moment, and it pulled at your heartstrings just enough but not too much.  Brad Pitt stars as a retired Jack Bauer type but he worked for the UN which doesn't seem very authentic (what would the UN need with a hard core kick ass guy?).  The movie builds the tension starting with an family outing gone horribly wrong.  It gives you clues before revealing exactly what's happening.  It's a frightening scenario.  The movie escalates from there with startling imagery and fast-paced action.  It does, however, suffer from something a lot of action movies and books seem to have: the climax is less exciting than what came earlier (viz: Olympus has Fallen).  And the ending, once they set it up, became quite predictable.

Another problem I had with the movie was military hardware.  There was a helicopter in the movie supposedly U.S. military that I know is not in the U.S. military inventory.  And the Israeli military was using the same helicopter (might have been the same aircraft repainted)  A C-130 cargo plane (the actor was credited as "C-130 pilot") was not a C-130 cargo plane.  The plane they used was close but it was too skinny and the nose was all wrong.  I suspect it was an An-12 Soviet-era cargo plane.

I gave World War Z four starts on Netflix because of the intense action sequences that kept me on the edge of my recliner.  And don't be scared off by its "horror" label.  The horror and gore are kept in check and the action is what this movie is all about.