“World War Z” began promisingly enough, with a sudden zombie outbreak in Philadelphia that had me hoping my dream might finally come true: At last, would I see the cast of “Silver Linings Playbook” torn into pieces and devoured? Alas, nothing that interesting, or interesting at all, ever happens.
Directed without flair by the middling Marc Forster (“Quatum of Solace”), “World War Z” consists mostly of chomping zombie near-misses as Brad Pitt, playing the world’s first useful UN worker, flies around the globe dispatching the undead, unraveling their mysteries and working out a long-term plan against the “Zekes,” as the Navy SEALs jocularly call them.
Zombies, lacking repartee, interesting motives or long-term strategies, make inherently dull villains — in their CGI swarms, they might as well be bees, or a wildfire, or a reverse rock slide. Which is why most ambitious zeke flicks spice things up with some allegory or mordant wit.
Not “World War Z”: Despite an opening montage of news clips that hints at such unlikely phenomena as dolphins beaching themselves en masse, an outbreak of rabies and people actually watching Piers Morgan, this one has no social significance. It’s just a jumped-up midnight movie that thinks “stuff jumping out at you and making loud noises” equals horror and “perfect human being impervious to everything” equals hero.
Brad Pitt stars in “World War Z” as former UN worker Gerry Lane. (Jaap Buitendijk)
Gerry Lane (Pitt) quit the UN, where he used to travel the globe solving problems (the first clue that the film is sci-fi). A loving dad of two adorable girls, he is driving with them and his wife (an irrelevant Mireille Enos) when the zombie apocalypse arrives. You or I would be terrified, or at least surprised: He reacts as calmly as if he had just chaired the commission behind the UN’s anti-zombie white paper.
A couple of jaunts around the globe later, you’ll have a lot of questions, but there’s only ever one answer: Because he’s Brad Pitt. Why does he know more about epidemiology than the World Health Organization? Because he’s Brad Pitt. Why is he the only one in Israel, which has been surrounded by zombies for days, who knows that loud noises agitate them? Because he’s Brad Pitt. Why does he get to outrun the Usain Bolts of zombieland even when he’s badly injured? Because he’s Brad Pitt.
When Gerry has a 2-foot prong of metal sticking through his guts, you don’t even wince. You just figure he’ll yank it out and close the wound with a stick of Juicy Fruit. It would be hard to locate a more boringly capable hero, and worse, every so often the movie stops to announce what a great dad Gerry is, to pander to Pitt’s soccer-mom fan base.
The family stuff is as meaningless and thrown-in as the Pepsi placement. An early scene in which Gerry’s daughter suffers an asthma attack turns out to mean nothing; she and the others are pushed off to the side for the duration.
So once you figure out the first rule of Zombie Fight Club — nothing too bad can happen to Brad Pitt — the movie is, despite intermittent thrills, rote. There are several intense chases and some dazzling trailer-bait set pieces such as one on a jet. But stapling together trailer moments does not a movie make.
To the extent there is a story — detective work so easy it could have been done on the phone — it takes a pernicious turn when Israel, alone, is said to have known about the zombie apocalypse in advance. In a world where perhaps hundreds of millions believe Israel knew about 9/11 beforehand, this shows poor judgment, to put it mildly. The movie backtracks by saying Israel is quick with the panic button because of its history, but that only makes it worse: Sorry, but Hitler and Munich aren’t to be used as cover for propagating the rancid fiction that Israel is suspiciously adept at predicting disaster in advance.