World War Z (2013)

"It's not a cure.  It's camouflage." (Gerry)

I can, with certainty, say that I enjoyed the circumstances surrounding my viewing of World War Z.  But, the movie is utter garbage.  However, it provided me with some unique thoughts on film making and story telling.  I'll list and then write about each point.

Information as a scarce commodity within movie making:

I've thought about this a lot and it is true for me that the ways in which one chooses to divulge information or keep it a secret will make or break all aspects of a movie.  If you are making a caper movie and you telegraph the Kansas City shuffle, it will be a flop.  If you start a space epic without grounding your audience in the factual reality of your new world: flop.  World War Z never explains the background of zombies.  It just starts the movie off in the opening salvo of a worldwide zombie attack.  No explanation.  Then without plot or narrative, our hamlet esque hero is sent around the world in pursuit of ?????  Finding out????? And illuminating nothing.  

Writing with the idea of a sequel preordained:

Don't do this!!!!  Write a movie that stands alone, and if you are lucky enough to get a sequel, base it off of a free standing original.  World War Z was clearly written with the expectation of more to come.  Why?  I don't know.  It would have been far better off having a real climax and finale.  

Zombie movie necessity:

Let your zombies be zombies.  Crazy infections swarms of zlocusts are not zombies.  

Ratings 

Mer-people:  skip it 

Brad Pitt: you financed this yourself?

Israel:  you are just type cast in WWZ

Cardiff:  You are in a movie.  Huzzah

Plotists:  Don't.  Just don't.  

On a scale of shuffling to tomb spawn stairwell, I give World War Z 1.7 out of 5 stars.