Whatever bro, tell it to the whales.*

[bending_sickle]

so i watched world war z yesterday

i didn’t like it

bearing in mind that a) my mood has lately been complete apathy (omg i dont currr) or complete argh, b) i’ve read the book numerous times, c) the walking dead and 28 days later are my kind of zombie thing, and d) i are scientist, let me ramble and rant disorganizedly as to why.

or you could ignore this, that’ll work too. or go watch the movie, you can do that too. go, enjoy, spill popcorn all over yourself as you flail.

okay, so this was a decent-enough summer action movie.  (whether it was a horror movie, whelp, i can only say, “eh?" it was more of a distaster movie than anything. and an EXPLOSIONS movie.)

but world war z this was not. i don’t even remember seeing words like “adapted" or “based on" or hell, max brook’s name, anywhere in there. and don’t give me any crap about how they couldn’t (even loosely) follow the format of the book (yay interviews, yay multiple storylines, yay multiple main-characters cast) because i will just point you towards things like babel and say yes yes they could’ve and they even could’ve had non-english languages in there. what i’m saying is that they didn’t have to figure out how to make a main character out of the book.

gods, there are so many cool and interesting formatting ways they could have made this movie. like first-person-point-of-view sitting across from interviewees and flashing back to the event discussed and repeating to another room, another interviewer, the clickety-clack of a typewriter and our narrator talking us through things. or main character from scene A interacts with later main character of scene B. just. *wild flaling*

or even sweet jesus they could have done a trilogy. (the book’s even split up into sections.) like they could have started off with the oh hey so there’s this thing what is it what’s happening and really made it a suspense movie about misinformation, all useless vaccines and south african rabies, and then suddenly omg reannimated corpses in the operating room what everybody head up north. it would have been easier to handle, they could have focused on a few stories (and hence had a handful of “main" characters), filled in the rest with oh we be listening to the radio and could have really brought out the scary, interesting, and unique bits of the book, which is how it is we let shit go down and not so much the actual shit going down.

(they tried to put in social commentary and whatnots. like the cop who is all murder? what murder? but yeah that felt forced and heavy-handed and are you really doing this, movie? really?)

just. why take a special thing and then take out the thing that made is special? world-wide zombie pandemic? we’ve seen it. hero wandering the land trying to save his family and the world? ditto.  but the potential lost here is just making me flail.

(WE COULD HAVE HAD THE LITERAL DECIMATION OF RUSSIAN CAMPS. I WILL FOREVER BE SAD ABOUT THAT. it’s not even in the abridged audiobook.)

i mean i can see where they tried, at the beginning and at the end with the radio voice-overs and the shots of different cities, trying to make it about the global aspect and not the one man must strive to save his family…and the world part of it. also the use of the term “zekes" (but it felt…off. artificial. idk, yo, just like they were trying too hard.)

(i cheered at the parachute lady and the “go north" bits at the end, for example, but went what the actual fuck at mexico city being destroyed - especially since all the americans were running to the border and begging to be let into mexico in the first place because wow way to cheat mexicans of a “fuck yeah, how’d you like them apples" moment. that would’ve been a great scene.

also the first part of the isreali scene. now that was the book. good long talking bit about what they did and why they did it, and yes a line from the book praise the gods. it was the only part that felt like the book.

although way to make israel all awesome and wonderful with it’s we take in eeeeeverybody because yeah, not so much in the books. only israelis, jews, and palestinians (or a specific subset of palestinians, or something)

the second part of the israeli scene was less good. one bit that pissed me off was the flashlight to the eyeballs to check that people weren’t infected. okay, one, if it takes seconds to be symptomatic, you don’t need to goddamn check to see if people are ticking timebomb zombies. and two, have you really figured out enough of the disease to be able to diagnose it with a quick peek at the eyeballs? really? you couldn’t have gone the sniffer dog route?)

speaking of which, so much english language. so many men. so many white men. and okay, there was thierry umutoni, but they explicitly said he had zilch power and influence any more, and instead the (white, male, american) general was in charge. there was the mexican or mexican-american family which oh great of course they don’t speak a word of english and the wee boy has to translate but come on.

(speaking of the mother-ship: how in the name of sweet baby jesus did they get their intell, like the giant flaming map of the world with all the epicentres and the red circles of doom if society was collapsing. how. maps aren’t magic.

and also? sad that we didn’t get any oceans churning with zombies because yo, no boat is safe.)

and oh dear gods, the children-and-wife-there-as-props to show how much our hero cares about his family (notice how his wife types in his name in the phone but he types in home yeah) and even though he’s a stay-at-home dad and the mother presumably works we have no idea what she does or anything. the opening of the movie is all this is our man. look how good he is. loving father and husband. aw. and everyone else is just there for him to react to so, not as people in their own right. (like the orphaned kid who’s just dragged along with them to show idek what, but i kept worrying they’d abandon him to the system at some point so i was damn glad to see he stuck with them until the end).

i might be forgetting bits but the wife was always being rescued or chaperoning the children while our hero led the way, and this only in the beginning. after she and the kids are on the boat, and our hero is on his journey, she’s reduced to a pretty passive role. one time she does something (call her husband back) she almost gets him killed. (well he could have fucking shut the thing off goddamnit). now, i don’t understand why she calls him. emotionally, i understand why she wants to, but her husband has been in many, many hot zones where honey i can’t talk right now must have been a thing. a please don’t call me they might kill me if they find me thing. this is a thing she should have known. no calling the person in the hot zone you don’t know what they’re doing. let them call you when they’re not running for their lives, hiding from ringwraiths, or have their hands up to their elbows in someone’s guts.)

so yeah so the whole movie is all about this great awesome white american going around doing everything better than everyone (him leading the trained israeli soldier, for one, and out-sciencing the scientists, for another) and everyone bending over backwards to help him. so your typical action hero movie whatnot. (as opposed to the book which is about everyone, all the little people who get lost in the mess)

and of course it all happens too fast. the scary thing in the books is that it’s slow and a few people see the problem for what it is (yay israel’s tenth man). but in the movie, there’s no months and months of slow buildup, of organ recipients going bad, of south african rabies, of vaccines. we just get a brief shot of a news channel on the television and a passing comment on the radio.and then suddenly wall of zombies which how, exactly.

it doesn’t make sense either, because if it takes seconds to go from healthy to zombie, then fuck you airplanes wouldn’t be a goddamn vector nothing would be a vector because the problem would be in your face. in the book, it’s a low fever, and those people can travel unmolested and spread the zombieitis.

(while we’re on the subject of planes. there is no explanation whatsoever for how that zombie got on the plane, especially not locked in the bathroom or whatnot. no. not with the speed of transition from bitten to zombie. just. no.

and maybe it’s because i’d just watched snakes on a plane but that whole scene was very much snakes on a plane. or rather, zombie on a plane. i mean we even had the tiny yapping dog! and then the great big hole in the side of the airplane and all the zombies flying out! i was sitting there going this looks familiar. this looks sooooo familiar- oh. snakes. plane. are you kidding me?!

also fuck that shit of only our two characters surviving that crash. fuck it stright up. and how in the name of ganesh the remover of obstacles did they find their way to the building?! they crashed in the middle of a forest! i mean sure wales isn’t huge but it ain’t that small, either.

also the music when our hero is hanging from the seat in the wreckage? the one that’s all quiet repetitive piano beat? that was some straight up 28 days later music. go on, tell me this shit doesn’t sound like this shit.  *angry flailing*)

speaking of zombieitis, say you’re a scientist who’s work is all about strange, horrible, bad bad bad diseases that could kill you dead without a prayer to your name. why in the name of fuck aren’t you wearing a biohazard suit when investigating a new strange horrible bad disease? like, how the hell did the WHO scientists get infected. especially considering our hero got it in his mouth and was fine. but now, these scientists look at a blood sample and go bananas. or else they inject themselves with it or roll around in vials of blood or god the fuck knows because bad science what are you doing.

as to why all the no good horrible bad diseases would only have one number pad between them and the destruction of the world, and not a thousand doors and biohazard decontamination chambers, we just don’t know. also, why would they be all packed together in one tiny little closet? (answer: they wouldn’t be.)

also while we’re on that scene of hi imma walk in to grab some deadly diseases WHAT MORON LEAVES HIS WEAPON OUTSIDE OF THE DOOR JESUS. and there were plenty of ways out of that room that didn’t require stabbing yourself with death. like there was a phone. people with access to the phone and the cameras could have called the phone and distracted the zombie long enough for our hero to go out, get his weapon, and stabbity-stab. or hey, while we’re at it, instead of writing tell my family i love them and showing it at the camera, how about i can stab myself with this disease or that one, which one do you have a cure for? ring once for this one, twice for that one. i mean for the love of god use your brain, people.

(speaking of moments i rolled my eyes so hard, the WHO guy who made loud bad hi zombies come eat us noise not once, not twice, but four actual times, pissed me off.)

(also speaking of that scene? wandering through corridors with weapons and zombies everywhere? major the walking dead flashbacks, of them clearing the prison out. except that scene was good and scary. this one here, not so much.)

let’s not even talk about how they came up with a “cure" (which sure sure a few minutes after getting injected and totally not being on the verge of death a zombie a putrescent zombie with no hightened senses whatsoever will decide you’re too sick to eat. sure. not that they eat people, apparently so what even. they just bite, move on.)

also what fuckery was that, that predators ignore sick individuals. those are the easiest to catch omfg and are therefore targeted for nomming! and anyway, at the very least, a river of zombies would not magically part around a crouched person so they remain unharmed, which is is why people get trampled by horses or, hey, people. don’t fucking tell me running zombies are any better at not trampling folk.

way to turn the quislings phenomenon on its head. instead of hey kids, pretending to be a zombie will still get you killed by a zombie! no you can’t go out for a shamble with the undead to get to the pub! it’s oh sure have a soft drink and amble past them no problem.

…and i think this concludes my flails.

look, basically? as a zombie movie, i didn’t particularly enjoy it. as a planetary-wide disaster, it was meh. as a look how we can make flowing cgi crowds it was neat. (and okay, the wide shots of cities lost, empty, and full of zombies was damn cool, though.)

oh, of course, i almost forgot to talk about the zombies. …they chitter. like rats. or squirrels. they honest to god made rodent noises and snapped their teeth. i - wha- no. also they were all *flying leap* everywhere. like, you’d need a goddamn trampoline to make the jumps they were making. (that one moving finger in a pile of ash was neat, though. points for that.)

but what i’m saying is i enjoyed tim burton’s planet of the apes a fuckton more and that movie makes me froth at the mouth with the amount of shit wrong with it. and it’s nowhere near to being a good movie. so y’know, for reference.

ps: muse. used. dubstep. my eyes couldn’t roll fast enough. my ears were convinced they’d heard the song a thousand times over already.

eta: the wee baby scientist was adorable and i liked his speech about mother nature. i am, however, tired of the young genius (male) scientist who is the best in his field shit. like science doesn't take learnings and time. also, way to die stupidly, scientist person. not that the people who gave you a loaded gun with the safety off, apparently, were any better.

* Max Brooks, World War Z

Comments

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

I think this was my favorite review.

[capn-mactastic.livejournal.com]

I took one look at the trailer and thought LOLHOLLYWOOD, because yeah. Hey, look, here's an interesting, unusual source to mine... MAKE A GENERIC, TROPE-HEAVY ACTION MOVIE!

And now I'm wondering where my copy of the book is, you've given me a hankering to reread it.

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

We could have had it aaaaaaaaaaaall. *sobs into hands*

I love the book. Every time I read it, it gives me chills. And oh hey, if you can gets your hands on it, I highly recommend the abridged audiobook. It's got different voice actors and is awesome.

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you!

[capn-mactastic.livejournal.com]

Maybe, years from now, someone will pick it up and do right by it. We can hope.

Oo, thanks, I'll look for it :D I've always been really bad with audiobooks because my mind drifts, but I seem to be able to use them when spinning.

[chaosvizier.livejournal.com]

Like so many other movies, all Hollywood needs to do is take the name of a book-like thing and use it to create something that may vaguely resemble something that the book might have been in another universe, only much much worse. Jason Bourne fans are still cranky about this, and we won't even talk about I Am Legend.

Cheeky Hollywood. I should make a movie where EVERYONE DIES TRAGICALLY. Take that!

Colliwobbles.

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

I take it Avatar: The Last Airbender has been wiped from the collective hive mind.

...I would totally watch a movie where everyone dies tragically. "This summer...rocks fall. Everybody...dies. Everybody."

[chaosvizier.livejournal.com]

Avatar:TLA was an animated series and THAT'S ALL IT EVER WAS.


"Coming this summer: The blockbuster event of the millennium! Do you think you are safe? Do you think you can protect the ones you love? Think again! You take your safety for granite. Being gneiss will not help. This is not a time for sediment and feelings. You will not remain shale and hearty for long. You will be basalted. The world is in deep schist from...

THE RAIN OF STONES.

Rocks will fall. All will die.

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Rock Hudson, and Chris Rock."

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

This is punalicious in every way :D

...and now I need that movie to be a thing.