Fans of the book World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks can either rejoice or fume at the fact that the new film adaptation is almost entirely its own unique entity. An opening credit claims it is “based” on the book. Sure, it does share the same title, and I can confirm that there are some borrowed story elements. However, the action-packed narrative of the World War Z movie is extremely different from the book, in which a collection of post-pandemic interviews conducted by an agent of the U.N. Postwar Commission (Max Brooks, as a fictionalized version of himself) reads like a non-fiction history book. In my opinion, a faithful adaptation of the book would work best in the form of a ten part HBO mini-series. But, since the Brad Pitt action spectacle is what we must see to satisfy our WWZ cravings, then we will just have to make do. Luckily, it really is not that bad. In fact, it is quite entertaining. WWZ lacks the heart and layered character portrayals we hoped for due to its connection to the phenomenal source material, but it remains a worthwhile blockbuster that contains a lot of thrills, impressive visuals, and a fun frenetic pace courtesy of numerous rewrites, reshoots, and a healthy dose of unpredictable plot turns.
