World War Z – Zombies who don’t like blood

World War Z is a mess. From zombies with no blood to characters we don’t really care about this really is a shambles. A mess indeed, but unlike the recent Man of Steel; this mess doesn’t drag. For all its unforgiveable bad parts, its frenzied action is enough to make it likeable and entertaining.

Brad Pitt plays Gerry Lane, a former UN employee who after years of dangerous work in volatile countries is now dedicating his time to his wife and two kids. When a strange virus starts turning people into violent mega athletes’ intent on biting each other, Gerry is called back to work, in the hope of helping find the source of this virus and creating a cure. Meanwhile, across the globe entire countries turn to dead zones as the virus spreads rapidly.

Definitely more 28 Days Later than Walking Dead, the ‘zombies’ move at the speed of light but curiously cause no gore. Much has been made of the films decision to cut out all gore for an accessible rating. While not crippling the film entirely, it is definitely one of the least threating of its genre, with scenes that could have been great reduced to being only ok as no realistic horror of the situation is on display.

The story is refreshing in that it takes the zombie plot to a world wide scale instead of focusing on one particular area. Unfortunately the script that accompanies is full of bad dialogue and clichés. Pitt’s Gerry gets the only real development, and Pitt makes the most out of his characters Bear Gryll’s like survival techniques. Unfortunately all other characters are let down, particularly Mireille Enos as Gerry’s wife, who spends most of the film making beds.

What keeps the film alive though is the set pieces, particularly the Jerusalem tower of zombies much publicised in the trailer. These move at breakneck speed and for all their implausibility’s, are still plenty of fun.

Far from a classic but a slightly different take on this genre which is usually confined to one setting. If you’re a zombie fan you might be disappointed by the lack of typical zombies, but if you want two hours of fast paced stupid action, this delivers.

3 out of 5

Man of Steel – Man of no appeal

I don’t know how it’s possible but the makers of Man of Steel have managed to spend every penny of a $225 million budget and not produce one minute of good cinema. If this were an indie film where filmmakers had struggled the almost impossible of securing some small financing I might give them 2 out of 5 for effort, but this is a film made by Warner Brothers based on an already established character with some great literature to choose a story from. Added to that a budget that could finance a hundred Donnie Darko productions and Man of Steel is nothing short of criminal. Filmmakers Spielberg and Lucas complained this week that cinema is struggling due to people turning their backs on it for TV. With great shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones versus rubbish like Man of Steel and Oblivion who can blame us? We didn’t give up on cinema, it gave up on us.

Opening on dying planet Krypton, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is forced to send his illegally born son Kal-El to Earth to escape genocide by General Zod (Michael Shannon), a man bred solely to keep the Kryptonian race alive. On Earth Kal-El finds himself raised by human parents in rural Kansas and from an early age becomes aware he may be a bit different to all the other kids when he starts lifting buses and seeing through walls. Approaching middle age Kal-El, now known as Clark Kent, finds himself wandering America hiding his powers, before reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) tracks this mysterious hero down. Unfortunately Zod has tracked him down too and is adamant Earth is destroyed to accommodate a new Kryptonian home planet.

As expected there are a lot of special effects, and their fine. But this isn’t a tech convention, a film can’t have merit on effects alone, this is still a medium for storytelling. The effects are so fast and manic that the fights turn into video games, and who’s who or what’s going on is lost, as is any excitement or tension. It always seems to be CG instead of an actor speeded up, once Superman goes in the air he’s just a graphic, and any sense of knowing this guy is lost.

Newcomer Henry Cavill doesn’t make much of an impact as Superman. He has very little to play with as the Clark Kent we know doesn’t really exist yet, but even still there is a huge lack of personality, humour or likeability to his performance. He just comes across as dull. Amy Adams is a fine actress but her Lois Lane is underwritten and weak. I hope she got well paid. Even the always great Michael Shannon as General Zod is only ok here. He gets the odd good line but never a long enough scene to really impress us. Russell Crowe does a good job as Jor-El, and the opening segment is probably the films best as we follow him around Krypton. It’s only a small part but German actress Antje Traue makes the most impact as one of Zod’s foot soldiers, more knife fights with her could have benefited the film.

The film doesn’t know what it is. It feels like Transformers with Superman filling in for Optimus Prime as cars are thrown and buildings destroyed. One minute we’re in space having a conversation, the next were in a military base in America, then a flash back to a daddy moment. The military is extremely overused. They’re useless against Superman and Zod as their bullets bounce off their skin, yet cuts to officers watching satellite images of objects flying around Earth is half the film. They create more plot holes than they cover, and when they use Lois Lane to help them save the day it descends into stupidity.

Stupidity is in overflow here, whether it’s Kevin Costner and a tornado or Lois Lane failing to connect a device and shouting ‘I can’t get it to go in all the way’ (‘that’s what she said’ could be heard from all corners of the cinema), stupidity is the product of a $225 million budget. Director Zack Snyder doesn’t know what he’s doing with this weak script, and it all shows. Forget about Christopher Nolan’s production credit too, Man of Steel makes Superman Returns (2006) look like a masterpiece.

People are being too kind to Man of Steel, saying it’s grand. This cost $225 million, this is shameful. Save your ‘grands’ for something that deserves it. This is rubbish. A few months ago the internet leaked that Man of Steel was rumoured to be the film of the summer. Of course that was the rumour, only Warner Brothers had seen the film and they needed to make their money back so of course they’re going to spread positive word. Unfortunately this will make a tonne of money and there’ll be a sequel, but this is genocide on all the more worthy films that could have been made with that budget.

1 out of 5