Jack B Nimble

Warning – This review may contain spoilers or information not immediately obvious from the trailers.

Like many people when I read the book I was caught up by the all the stories of before, during, and after the zombie apocalypse. The individual stories, the psychological, political, and societal reactions from the characters brought a feeling of how real and terrible the breakdown of society would be.

When I saw the movie I immediately recognized that a lot of that had been taken out in order to create a fast paced action movie. It reminded me of the movie 2012. In that movie you follow a family as they race from one disaster to another trying to escape the destruction of the Earth. World War Z felt very similar. Instead of seeing many accounts across the entire world we follow one man, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), and his family while he goes from one disaster to another looking for a solution to the zombie problem.

In the book there isn’t a cure (although there are stories around people claiming to have them). Subsequently the book is about survival. When the book ends societies and the Earth as a whole are forever changed because of the apocalypse. In the movie things are obviously going to be different, but I get the feeling not in the same way.

Everyone everywhere has been talking about how the movie has nothing in common with the book except for the title. Here are some of the things that are in fact the same.

• Both have zombies.
• Israel abandons some disputed territories and builds a wall around their protected zones.
• The initial outbreak area is in East Asia.
• Major cities fall with people trying to flee to the sea.

Here are some things I think the movie does a poor job of explaining or takes too far.

• From infection to becoming zombified is super fast sometimes and really slow or non-existent other times. Once that stuff is in your blood it shouldn’t take long for it to latch onto your soul.
• The portrayal of how bad the teeth are in England (it is too horrifying).
• The zombies working together to overcome barriers.
• Zombies are attracted to some sounds, but not other sounds (like sounds made by other Zombies). These zombies are apparently smart enough to distinguish sounds by their origin (even when it is a pop can knocked over by a human that ultimately bursts open).

Overall I felt it was a decent enough zombie action movie. The one question both the book and the movie fail to answer is: If these zombies have unlimited energy why doesn’t anyone think to trap them in giant mount wheel that turns a turbine and get unlimited energy forever? You’d just need a guy or two standing behind a secure window to entice the zombies to move towards you. Think people! Think!

Although I went into the film with a few spoilers (having listened to a movie review podcast and seeing a few questions on SciFi.StackExchange) I was surprised by the amount of information I didn’t already know.

Man of Steel presents a more science fiction origin to Superman than we have previously seen in films. In the comics and cartoons we know that Krypton was technologically advanced and Superman reaps some of the benefits of that, but in the movies the Kryptonian technology seems to be based primarily on crystals and their ability to make houses. In Superman Returns Lex Luthor captures some crystal growing technology and attempts to create a new continent. When asked how he is going to defend it he says he’ll use the advanced technology. Considering it is just him and his idiot henchmen, I have no confidence in his ability to do this. I have great confidence in Zod, because with Man of Steel the technological superiority of the Kryptonians is obvious. Also, they are all supermen.

Superman’s powers are giving a slight polish to the established canon.  Having evolved from a significantly harsher planet, Kryptonians on a whole are highly adaptable. Martha Kent describes the baby Clark Kent as wheezing and coughing through the night as his lungs tried to process Earth air. He gains super strength and speed from the Earth’s young sun. His additional abilities of x-ray vision, heat vision, and telescopic vision are a result of the Earth’s atmosphere. Superman now loses some powers when he is removed from that environment (somewhat… inconsistently). Hopefully the great Superman powers race won’t begin where in every new movie he needs more and more ridiculous abilities (I’m looking at you, Superman IV).

For the first time on film we see the super speed and destructive strength of a super charged Kryptonian at work. The almost teleporting nature of the attacks is what I imagine The Flash would look like.  Speaking of other characters, there are at least two Easter eggs in the film. One referring to Lex Luthor and another referring to Wayne Enterprises. With the exception of the Easter egg billboard in I Am Legend I am not aware of any cross references between any DC heroes before in the films. Everyone knows that DC and WB would love to see the same kind of money from a Justice League movie as Marvel did with The Avengers. Green Lantern didn’t do well, but maybe if Man of Steel does extremely well JL will still happen. If DC wants to do an origin story for every member of the Justice League they still need to do 5 (Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, and presumably Batman).

What did I think of it? I felt the movie was fairly slow throughout the middle. The intense action scenes at the start and end seemed to compound the feeling on nothing happening in-between. I find myself frustrated by the mentality of Hollywood that every super hero must reveal their identity on screen (or at all). Batman has told so many people that he is Bruce Wayne he has probably just started printing it in on this business cards.

Sadly the same may be true for poor onscreen Superman.  The action of the film was both amazing and horrifying. This isn’t the same kind of Superman we saw in the 70s and 80s. I walked out thinking the movie was okay.