I went into watching this flick (in its "extended" form) with my expectations at rock bottom after months of negative press and information and trailers in the lead-up to the initial release. Likewise with very mixed reviews coming from fellow zombie fans, I was preparing myself for an out-right calamity. Fortunately, it wasn't quite that bad - however, it was still a massively compromised hodge-podge of CGI, gargantuan plot holes, and leaps in logic that crumble what semblance of a narrative there is. Effectively a series of increasingly large scale set pieces, the film rushes to establish a 'family dynamic' to give Brad Pitt's Gerry something to fight for. Sadly, the film never earns the right to our emotions as it swiftly goes about throwing as much money at the screen as possible. The scale is impressive, but the running, jumping, screeching, twitching, 'zombies' look awful - it's CGI overload and groan-inducing "I Am Legend" style nonsense all-the-way. The 'ant hill' and 'fluid group dynamics' are just naff gimmicks as the CGI 'zombies' defy physical logic and the abilities of the human body.
The third act - the much talked-about costly reshoots - is, by comparison to the rest of the film, evidently cheap. It's essentially twenty minutes creeping around an office building in Wales with an underwhelming biological discovery. Crammed-to-the-gills with moronic characters, idiotic decisions, and dodgy plotting, WWZ gives grand and entertaining spectacle, but the complete and utter trampling of the source text is unforgivable. Furthermore, swapping out the novel's shambling zombies for CGI runners is a slap in the face to the hardcore fans - you can't help but wonder if the filmmakers just weren't capable of 'making slow zombies scary' ... never mind that the book shows them exactly how to make it work (the Battle of Yonkers, anyone?), as well as the most popular show on Cable TV in America right now by the name of The Walking Dead.
Lots of flash, lots of "BIG STUFF HAPPENING", but little thought throughout, and a fetid stench of a death by a thousand committee cuts. Sometimes alright, sometimes shite.
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
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Originally Posted by AcesandEights
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Anyway, I'll say it again. This movie is dung. Worst film I've ever seen in a theater. And I saw that stupid Star Wars Clones animated film in a theater (I know, the shame...). But yes, no, you missed nothing. In fact, it would've been better if you had seen none of it at all. It's an insult to any actual zombie fan. Rar rarr. I didn't like it. Boohoo. No, I'm over it... I've got the book. Better to buy the book again than watch the film.
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