FILM: World War Z

World War Z caught my attention over six months ago for a number of reasons, not least of which was curiosity regarding how Hollywood could take yet another zombie film. Another reason was Brad Pitt’s name attached to it, because I really like Brad Pitt as an actor. You may say what you will about him, but he knows his craft and he knows it well, and I do not believe his celebrity status has hurt his credibility.

The real problem with zombies is that what once may have been a plot device is now an entire genre, and with a genre comes cliché. And as zombies are traditionally a horror fiction convention, the last thing zombie fiction needs is predictability - nothing is scary if the audience knows what is coming. Naturally, there are few places to take the zombie apocalypse anymore as it has become, in my eyes, fairly stale and dull now that we’ve seen more than our fair share of zombies in fiction. We know how this goes.

That being said, World War Z has a lot in common with disaster movies, such as those by Roland Emmerich, which I actually like, because they are a projection of how our world in its current geo-political state would withstand a worldwide catastrophe. The zombies themselves are not the important concept; what is important is how everyone reacts to the zombies. Even so, zombies are still boring, and it takes a fair amount of effort to make them interesting.

I’ve droned repetitively about characterization a lot recently, and for good reason: characters are the core of film. Without characters, the film is nothing - even the most interesting and groundbreaking plot in history will be worthless unless it can be filled with at least one decent person to drive it. The reverse, however, works quite well; a terrible plot can be saved by good characterization, which is likely the only reason zombie films are still around. 

First impressions of World War Z were not great, as opening with a high-speed car chase through inner city streets does not give high hopes for subtlety. Overall, the world to describe this film would be unexceptional - that is, it doesn’t do anything badly, but it doesn’t do much well either. While it’s far from outstanding, the many functional elements that build a film are all adequate and sound. The writing is decent and the characterization is solid, the plot works and the visuals are nice, but not much of this film goes beyond adequate. In some ways, it’s about as generic as possible, as the plot follows the standard predictable storyline of every other disaster/outbreak/zombie film ever made.

The narrative concerns Gerry Lane, an ex-UN worker (it’s never revealed exactly what he did for them) trying to find solace for his family when zombies attack Philadelphia. When the UN accept their asylum on an aircraft carrier, they blackmail Gerry into helping them find a cure by threatening to throw his family off the boat. Naturally, he gets swept unwillingly into the global search for a cure, eventually finds it, goes home to see his family and everyone lives happily ever after. It’s the same plot we’ve seen before - so far, unexceptional

There are many factors which may carry a film. The characters are one; plot, humour, visuals, and philosophical exploration are but a few others. In a film such as World War Z, however, we’re left with the plot, because there’s no humour, the visuals are only there to support the plot, and there’s only so much you can make a grand statement about with zombies. As for characters, there’s only one - Gerry - and the rest fall by the wayside. With this comes no uncertainty about the fate of the protagonist; if he dies, there’s no other character well defined enough to pick up the pieces, and the film falls apart. So it would be foolish to kill off Gerry at any point, and more well-defined characters would have been a good idea to throw into the mix, to allow for the possibility of Gerry’s death. It must be said, however, that Gerry is indeed a very well written character, with subtle throwaway lines establishing his true personality, which is the art of screenwriting.

One thing this film does which I do like is refrain from creating a super-capable and confident protagonist. Rather than have him carve through zombies like an expert, he is shown struggling, making mistakes, and hesitating, establishing him as a mere everyman caught in a massive catastrophe. Yes, he has had some field experience from working in the UN, but he’s no soldier or expert fighter, and it shows. In one scene he’s even hiding in a corner while the soldiers take care of everything. The fact that he is shown to react to situations in the same way most ordinary people would allows us to relate to his experiences, drawing us in and immersing us in the story His previous field experience ensures he is not completely clueless, which adds believability to his survival, striking a nice balance between unrealistic expert and clueless coward. This makes him a real person in the eyes of the audience, which is paramount for effective storytelling.

And now we can get to the good bits. I said that Gerry reacts to situations in a realistic and credible manner, which is but one part of the strength of this film. What makes World War Z stand out is the action scenes, in that it makes every effort to convey accurately how confusing and incoherent the scenes would be in real life. Case in point would be when Gerry and his UN team land in South Korea, and zombies run at them in the night and the rain. This film illustrates that, if this were to happen in real life, it would be far from clear what to do, and any ordinary person’s first emotional reaction would be confusion, followed closely by fear. Small, subtle touches, like shaky camera effects focussing on nothing coherent, blurry lens flares and sound dropping out, are what create the experience. It draws you in thusly, invoking panic and fear, allowing the events on screen to have actual weight and meaning. Whereas in something like Man of Steel the on-screen events feel little more than superficial. Lastly, World War Z manages to carry genuine tension and fear, which I haven’t seen in recent releases since Prometheus last year. It is actually an incredibly intense experience, the pinnacle of which is the gut-wrenching scene after Gerry survives a plane crash and finds he has been impaled with shrapnel. After establishing his helplessness state, the sound of a zombie in the distance is genuinely terrifying, and induces panic as we hope for Gerry to get on his feet and get out of there.

I wouldn’t say it is an amazing film, but World War Z is powerful, and attempts to be realistic, which is more than one could say for the majority of Hollywood’s output. Things like children experiencing post-traumatic stress, and Gerry passing out for three days following his aforementioned impalement help invoke empathy and audience investment in the film, which is essential for creating power and weight. As a result of all I have mentioned, everything from car accidents to people dying actually feel like they mean something, and there’s really no point including such things unless they do.

I mentioned before that I like global disaster films because they show us how our world would react to catastrophes in its current geo-political state, and World War Z does flirt with this idea, even if only fleetingly. North Korea, for example, pulled the teeth of its entire population to stop the spread of the zombie virus, and Israel walled itself in to keep them out. These events are only mentioned in passing, but they help give a sense of scale to the events, and is fascinating to me with my personal interest in world geography.

It’s possible that I am being too kind to World War Z, but after watching Man of Steel I’m sure that’s acceptable. With so much bad film coming out this year - particularly this season - it’s refreshing to see a high-budget film with actual substance, a rare thing these days. World War Z takes a generic plot, and despite the occasional cliché here and there, it does the zombie thing so well that it should be commended. Even though it may not be a particularly exceptional film in other regards, and there are so many, far better thriller films out there, it is an intense experience which I nonetheless enjoyed thoroughly. And it contains many valuable lessons about seat belts.

FILM: Man Of Steel

I’ve never liked comic book superheroes. They always struck me as the embodiment of juvenile power fantasies, written by and for teenage boys who are bullied in school, so they could express their desire to beat the tough bad guy and win the girl at the end. The characters are always stupid, one-dimensional stereotypes, the stories are predictable, and the visual style is both asinine and juvenile. Despite this, there are two comic book superhero films of recent years that I actually like. The first is The Dark Knight trilogy, from director Christopher Nolan, a sophisticated take on the Batman character employing some truly dark and philosophical themes concerning the human condition. The second is Watchmen, from Zack Snyder, which is less morbid and sinister, but no less interesting. Both are very well written, have well established characters, and are truly thought-provoking in their own right, and notably, both stories significantly downplay all supernatural elements, if any. Man of Steel is a film which I feared would try far too hard to be The Dark Knight, and subsequently fail from having to live in the shadow of such a fantastic film. Evidently, however, I needn’t have worried.

I’m going to be upfront about this film. Man of Steel is horrendously bad in every way. It is a film which is drowned in so much bullshit, that I don’t even know where to begin in criticising it. I wanted to walk out of the film - something I never do, because I prefer to see where a film takes itself to the end. However, watching this film to the end is something I actually regret; just when I thought it was going to end, I looked at the time and (to my dismay) found it had another forty minutes left.

As I mentioned above, I’m not a fan of superhero stories, and among my least favourites would have to be Superman. I remember watching Superman Returns, and thinking of how unbalanced and stupid his character was. Superman is essentially indestructible and is capable of almost any miraculous feat imaginable - and without weaknesses he cannot be a compelling character. For him to be interesting we need a second character to bring out some of his personality, but Man of Steel barely bothers to characterise anyone.

For a while I thought that Man of Steel embodied the reasons I dislike superheroes in general, but on reflection it embodies almost everything I hate about modern films in general. It’s hardly a superhero film; merely another generic science fiction film,  which there have been a lot of this year so far. Terrible characterisation, a dull, simplistic plot, bad writing making every event seem hollow and superficial, action scenes that outstay their welcome, and a reliance on special effects for quality. Solid writing can easily compensate for below-average production quality; however, an expensive budget and a polished production can never make up for poor writing. In other words, Man of Steel is a textbook example of “style over substance”. 

This film is so bad I don’t even know where to begin. But, as I have to start somewhere, I might as well start with the petty gripes. Firstly, you cannot take any character seriously if his name is “Zod”. This is a science fiction naming trend which should have ceased thirty years ago - throwing in random ‘z’s and ‘x’s in your characters’ names does not make them seem “more alien”; it just makes them sound stupid. I know that General Zod is a main character from the original stories, but that doesn’t excuse it. I would have thought a re-imagining of Superman in this film would have taken the opportunity to improve it, rather than play to the fans. 

Man of Steel lost me within the first five minutes, which consisted of a long, boring action scene where aliens were shooting each other with “futuristic” laser guns. As the film progressed, it became more and more clear that it was little more than another generic science-fiction action film. It is boring, tedious, repetitive, and devoid of even a single original thought or idea, like all the others of its kind that have been released this year.

The thing is, the trailer made it out to be a re-imagining of Superman as a character and as a franchise. Moral and philosophical questions were raised about the responsibilities of a superior man, and with Christopher Nolan’s name plastered over the trailer I had suspected Superman would be getting the Dark Knight treatment - that is, a deconstruction of the very nature of the character. But Man of Steel turned out to be about as generic as can be, and even makes Superman Returns look half-decent. What’s worse is that the most interesting scenes in the actual film were all in the trailer. It definitely sold me the film and made me curious to watch it, but Man of Steel was falsely advertised in this regard. Watching the trailer on repeat for two and a half hours would probably be more interesting than watching the actual film.

I actually like what they started to do with the character in this film. It seemed like there was a lot of potential to explore him in a much more in-depth fashion, and I like the concept of a lone, superior man, who can see further than the rest of humanity, driven to solitude because of his nature. A man who cannot reveal his true nature, and must therefore hide it at all costs. I would like to see a film where we can delve into Superman’s inner conflicts and angst much more. We see a glimpse of this idea in a few scenes toward the beginning of the film, notably when he is seen hitchhiking and backpacking across the country, as well as scenes from his childhood. There was great potential for something truly spectacular, which might have even had a deeper meaning, but all pretense of any such thing was abandoned fairly early on.

What’s remarkable is that by comparison, even the first Spider-Man movie (the Tobey Maguire one), which was by all accounts bad in its own right, managed to explore Peter Parker as an interesting human character fairly well. It focussed on the decisions and conflicts he faced in being who he was, and the risks he took with his dual identity. Even if it was done poorly, it was better than Man of Steel, where every character is wooden and stale and devoid of any complex personality. Clark Kent’s character is barely established or explored on any level. It makes it difficult to take seriously if we are dealing with characters we can’t relate to because they are simple and one-dimensional.

There has been a trend in recent years for films to go for longer than two hours. Personally, I am a fan of this, because it allows far more depth in films than what has traditionally been possible. However, the downside is that if a film is both bad and long, it’s only rubbing salt into the wound. Man of Steel’s length is unnecessarily padded by boring action and fight scenes, which go on for far longer than is needed to make the point. I’m going to make this point: film should be a medium to convey and showcase new ideas to the public, and a means in which to make people think. It doesn’t need to all the time; films can also be fun, and don’t necessarily need to contain thought-provoking ideas. But highly-produced action and fight scenes are neither of these things. They are not interesting to watch, nor are they exciting or enthralling in any way. Perhaps they were when this level of special effects was a new thing, but we’ve gotten to the point where this level of production is going to be difficult to top, and we are getting diminishing returns as we continue to expand our technological capabilities for film production. Unless films want to spiral into mediocrity, they need to start once again relying on solid writing and interesting plot ideas - they need to have substance. Not merely style - this brand of filmmaking is superficial and has a very limited shelf-life.

I already said I don’t like superheroes, and by that account some may accuse me of bias. Perhaps I am biased - but if that’s the case, I’m biased in favour of Man of Steel, because of the men behind it. Maybe the reason this film incited such vitriol and hatred in me is because I expected much more from a Chris Nolan and Zack Snyder collaboration. The latter, who made the great Watchmen film; and the former, who has produced nothing but gold since Following, are both capable of so much more, and together they could have made this film amazing. Instead, Man of Steel is nothing more than overproduced, generic, unoriginal, derivative rubbish. And I refuse to believe Nolan watched this film and decided it was good enough to be released.

In fact, watching this film kind of put me off the future of the film industry in general. I honestly don’t remember seeing a film this atrocious for a long time. It’s one of those rare films which made want to leave, but not just because it was a waste of money. Mainly, Man of Steel was a waste of my time, which I believe is a first for me. My final word on Man of Steel is to avoid - save your time and money. On a somewhat lighter note, why has no one learned from The Incredibles about the uselessness of capes?