I went to bed. I did not have nightmares. I slept soundly. In fact, I did not really think much more of the movie outside of the fact that I had watched the movie. Actually, I thought a whole lot about what I was possibly missing from the movie----some underlying meaning, some deeper angle into ideas of humanness and humanity and what it means to be a human as opposed to being not human (or a zombie)----because I guess I wanted something to mull.
Something. Anything.
This morning I clicked on Roger Ebert's review of World War Z and eureka! I discovered words that described my own fuzzy opinion on this big-budget film that resonated such very small waves with me. (Read Ebert's full review here) Ebert aptly describes the camera shots as "panoramas of thousand of computer-generated zombies swarming ant-like up walls and over barricades and taking down computer-generated choppers while panicked generals watch on monitors from thousand of miles away and Forster's close-up camera wobbles and wiggles and swings all over the place to generate unearned 'excitement.'"
Unearned excitement. That's it. That's why this movie didn't stick with me.
It's not that this movie is bad. I enjoy zombie flicks, I'm a Brad Pitt fan, I like gratuitous violence for a cause sequences, but I also get bored fast with anything that belabors the fact that the main guy ain't dyin' no matter what. (Enter any Pirates of the Caribbean movie here...) And I also cannot invest myself in any character or conflict or moral dilemma which hasn't first been invested in elsewhere. Why am I suppposed to care? Even about the end of the world as we know it? HOW I am supposed to care, when it only takes 3 minutes and 49 seconds (I exaggerate?) of film time to present the swirl of emotion I am supposed to feel, compress it, and dab it in my eye, only it's not my eye, it's a digital eye, moving at a frenetic, zombie pace.
Unearned excitement indeed. Give me the book.
Right? Right, gentle reader? Isn't this precisely why the book beats Hollywood, always?
I'm not talking about a large percentage here. I am talking about a perfect record. Book beats movie 100% of the time. Close seconds allowed and expected, but ultimate winners will always come packaged in ink. Or at least digital ink.
Condition: You have to have read the book first. Because if you haven't, then the phrase "based on the novel/short story/etc. by _____" takes on such flimsy meaning and there's no going back. Enter the Bourne series here. Excellent movies. So very loosely based on Ludlum's novels. Miles apart different and both excellent fun.
Prove me wrong here. Need another example? Look at my previous post.
Look at the career that Tolkien handed to Peter Jackson even as he confidently stepped back up to the winner's podium.
Look at Harry Potter episode 3. Or the fact that it took them two movies to fully give us The Deathly Hallows.
Look at any of the clumsy attempts at Alice in Wonderland (weirdly creepy). Or any movie based on the writing of Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park the movie had 17 total good minutes). Or Stephen King, for that matter. The Stand miniseries, anyone?
And why is this? Why the difference? Why the superiority in writing? Unearned excitement. Hollywood provides us a cheaper route to adrenaline, emotion, even inspiration. 90 minutes of digital zombies cannot match 90 minutes of its page-turning equivalent. It's not bad, in fact it can be quite great. But not better. Our brains know better.
I could be wrong.
I agree it was World War Zzzzzz. Quite literally. I had the opportunity to see this movie at the Harvest Moon Drive- in theater in Gibson City, IL as the second movie in a double feature. The first movie was Monsters U. (exactly what you might think it would be.) So as World War Zzzzz began it was almost midnight and me and my grandparents were falling into a whole lot of Z's. So, rather than risk waking up the next morning in what is by day no more than an open field, we left. In fact, my Grandma was so tired that she made my Grandpa drive her car home, and I got to drive his 1963 Ford Galaxie home through the Children of the Corn country that is rural Illinois, alone. There are no "short" drives out there, either. Very Spooky, like actually being in an old Stephen King book/ Movie. I, of course, loved every minute of it! So, basically, It was more of a thrill for me to skip World War Z than it would have been to actually see it.
ReplyDeleteThen, when Christmas shopping with my Sister for my Dad, she insisted we get the movie. This, of course, after I've already read this blog. So my expectations were not high, and I was not wholly disappointed by it.