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some time ago, lhn@lj mentioned this interview with damon lindeloft to me. in it, lindelof describes (in spoilerific detail) how he rewrote the ending to world war z after the original gore-enriched ending failed utterly when filmed.¹ that convinced me that i should see WWZ at some point.
1: the interview mostly about modern movie-making in general, so it's worth reading even if you're not interested in WWZ
i finally tossed it on the net.flicks queue, and i watched it over the weekend, long after i'd forgotten how WWZ ended. it's worth watching.
as any of the reviews will tell you, WWZ mixes a forensic epidemiology procedural with a zombie flick. the strange thing is that it manages to work, despite there still being some odd shifts in tone. i'm taking those to be scars from grafting on the new ending while trying to salvage as much of the movie as was already in the can as possible.
the ending has at least handwaving scientific plausibility, and while the characters miss a few tricks i think they should have gotten, the movie manages not to descend into idiot plot. that's a big achievement for the sub-genre; too often in horror/action movies, the characters need to be dumb as dirt to avoid accidentally wrapping the movie up too soon. it's not as good as edge of tomorrow in that regard, but it is well above average.
i think most of the online movie emporia have WWZ available, so if you have even modest interest in an out-of-character action movie (so to speak) you should give it a try. with modern technology, it's possible to skip a lot of pure zombie splatterfest (just hold down fast forward from after Our Hero counts up to twelve until he arrives on a ship; you won't miss much).
1: the interview mostly about modern movie-making in general, so it's worth reading even if you're not interested in WWZ
i finally tossed it on the net.flicks queue, and i watched it over the weekend, long after i'd forgotten how WWZ ended. it's worth watching.
as any of the reviews will tell you, WWZ mixes a forensic epidemiology procedural with a zombie flick. the strange thing is that it manages to work, despite there still being some odd shifts in tone. i'm taking those to be scars from grafting on the new ending while trying to salvage as much of the movie as was already in the can as possible.
the ending has at least handwaving scientific plausibility, and while the characters miss a few tricks i think they should have gotten, the movie manages not to descend into idiot plot. that's a big achievement for the sub-genre; too often in horror/action movies, the characters need to be dumb as dirt to avoid accidentally wrapping the movie up too soon. it's not as good as edge of tomorrow in that regard, but it is well above average.
i think most of the online movie emporia have WWZ available, so if you have even modest interest in an out-of-character action movie (so to speak) you should give it a try. with modern technology, it's possible to skip a lot of pure zombie splatterfest (just hold down fast forward from after Our Hero counts up to twelve until he arrives on a ship; you won't miss much).