When zombies attack…

By Roger Moore


Film: World War Z
Cast: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, David Morse, James Badge Dale, Mathew Fox
Direction: Marc Forster

World War Z promised to be some sort of ultimate zombie movie experience, and it’s hard to call it that. But the first 25 minutes or so of this Contagion-meets-28 Days Later thriller will leave you breathless. And the rest of it serves up novel and often entertaining solutions to the various “zombie problems” that this overexposed genre presents.
Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace) hurls us straight into the action. Barely five minutes into the film, ex-UN trouble-shooter Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), his wife (Mireille Enos) and two kids are trapped in Philadelphia traffic when all heck breaks loose. Whatever hints there have been about this “rabies” outbreak on the news cannot prepare them for the melee a tidal wave of the undead unleash.
They dash through an onslaught of zombies, streets of mayhem, stores filled with looters. Parents act like parents (To the kids: “Be NINJA quiet!”) and Gerry lets on that he knows more than we realise as he armours himself against being bitten and takes suicidal precautions when he is exposed.
Gerry has special skills. He was a researcher/troubleshooter for the United Nations. His old UN boss (Fana Mokoena) says “I need you”, and that’s his family’s source of rescue. As cities fall and governments collapse, the “useful” and the powerful find themselves ferried to an offshore flotilla of survivors where the military and the UN help them regroup and start looking for answers.
“The airlines were the perfect delivery system” for a virus, we’re told. “Attention, DC has gone dark,” a public address system aboard their safe-haven aircraft carrier announces.
And then begins Gerry’s long, deadly search for clues, for Patient Zero, the first place this epidemic broke out and the “crumbs” that will point to a solution.
An awful lot of the budget — that’s not reserved for special effects — must have gone to Pitt, as the supporting cast is seriously low-wattage, only a few name players in bit parts. David Morse has a chewy, toothless scene describing how North Korea may have saved itself. Mathew Fox and James Badge Dale are swaggering soldiers improvising their way through Armageddon, making sure they “get Zekes (zombies) on the ground”.
Gerry Lane doesn’t swagger. He doesn’t panic, but Pitt never lets on that his character is sure of the outcome even if giving up is no option. “Gut up,” he tells a soldier. Pitt lets us see Gerry take his own advice.
Forster keeps the gory stuff — bitings, bloodlettings, amputations — discretely off camera. But he rarely lets the tension dissipate.
The Contagion vibe clings to it, with science straining to find an answer and the last vestiges of government grasping at a desperate measure to save them all.
So no, World War Z isn’t the ultimate zombie movie. But 11 years after 28 Days Later, it’s reassuring to see the human race put aside its differences and share a little brain power to defeat those who — tradition and George A Romero always told us — prefer their brains fresh and juicy. — MCT

Eye-popping animation


Film: Epic (animation)
Cast: The voices of Amanda Seyfried, Josh Hutcherson, Colin Farrell, Beyonce Knowles
Direction: Chris Wedge

Derivative as all get out and plainly concocted by a committee, Epic is a children’s animated film that is more entertaining and emotional than it has any right to be.
Characters make sacrifices and die, miss their parents and mourn. And we’re touched. At least a little. Hard (if over-familiar) lessons are learned and laughs land on queue. Throw in some truly gorgeous animation and Blue Sky, the studio that made it, delivers more proof that it’s moved on from the junky cash-machine Ice Age movies, even if this one doesn’t rise to the charms and wit of Rio.
Taking characters from William Joyce children’s novel about Leaf Men and Brave Good Bugs, a team of writers has borrowed from Antz and A Bug’s Life, and even The Spiderwick Chronicles, for a story about the fairy forces of life in a forest, the Leaf Men (and women) and their allies, in battle with the rotting reptilian bog-dwelling forces of decay.
A dotty scientist has surveillance cameras covering the forest where this struggle is going on and suspects there are little people out there, riding into battle on hummingbirds and crows, armoured and armed with bows and arrows.
But it’s his daughter, M K (Amanda Seyfried), who finds the proof. That happens when she’s magically shrunk by the Queen (Beyonce Knowles) and tasked with ensuring that this one lily pod blooms and renews life by the light of the full moon.
M K struggles to survive this brave (tiny) new world, where warriors like the rebellious Nod (Josh Hutcherson) and mission-focused Ronin (Colin Farrell) must fend off the reptilian designs of Mandrake (Christoph Waltz), who is determined to upset the balance between new life and decay and thus take over the forest.
M K is assisted in her quest by a very funny snail and a slug (Chris O’Dowd, Aziz Ansari), who know how to keep the pod alive until it blooms. And they are guided by the daffy six-legged Nim (Steven Tyler), the “scroll-keeper” who sings and studies records from the past to figure out how to carry out the pod-blooming ritual.
The film’s eye-popping next-generation animation gives the forest and its creatures wonderful shadings and detail, and makes the cartoon humans even more lifelike. But that’s the sort of thing critics mention when the story is kind of all over the place, a real patchwork of ideas and inventions borrowed elsewhere.
Epic isn’t epic, but it isn’t half bad, either. It’s just that as high as the bar has been raised on this sort of animation, this is more evidence that a stro ng story is worth more than any next-generation software. — By Roger Moore/MCT

Fairly conventional caper comedy


Film: The Hangover Part III
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Ken Jeong, John Goodman
Direction: Todd Phillips

Slow, sentimental and somewhat sedated, the third Hangover movie isn’t so much exhausted of outrageous “Oh no, they Didn’t!” ideas as it is spent of energy. And they knew it, too. The only raunchy moment is stuffed into the closing credits, a “we forgot to do that” afterthought.
They know they’re done. They just want to make sure we know.
The Hangover Part III becomes a fairly conventional caper comedy with the capers driven by the still-cackling, far-less-manic Mr Chow, played right to the edge of caricature by the irrepressible Ken Jeong.
It begins with the Alan (Zach Galifianakis) buying and accidentally decapitating a (digital) giraffe, driving his doting dad (Jeffrey Tambor) to a heart attack. And that’s just the first death.
Ditzy Alan needs an intervention, and that’s when the “Wolf Pack” (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Justin Bartha) are commissioned to deliver him to a rehab facility in Arizona. On the way, they’re car-jacked by a mobster (John Goodman) who takes hapless Doug (Bartha, who’s had the “missing” role in all three films, poor fellow) hostage. The Wolf Pack has to track down the thieving Chow, who has escaped from a Thai prison.
“You introduced a virus into my life, Mr Chow,” the mob boss bellows. Go fetch him.
The boys promise to “take him out” to save Doug. That leads us to Tijuana and eventually back to where all this started — Las Vegas.
There’s only one funny cameo, and funny lines are rare and random this time — references to past escapades (“Did you get tested?”) and Mr Chow’s peccadilloes (“Gimme some sugar.”).
People and animals die.
Even the racist zingers feel like pulled punches:
“We’re looking for an Asian guy. He’s short.”
“They’re All short.”
As is the movie, though it plays considerably longer than the first two. As Hangovers go, Part III isn’t challenging or unpleasant, just instantly forgettable. It won’t take much to sleep this one off. — By Roger Moore/MCT

(DVDs courtesy:
Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha)