World War Z

World War Z or World War Z as it’s pronounced here in the UK is a zombie apocalypse movie based on the 2006 novel of the same name. It takes the traditional ideas of a zombie movie and expands them to a global scale, telling at the same time the story of a single Philadelphian family whose patriarch, ex UN investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), is tasked with travelling the globe in search of the outbreaks origin, with the hope of discovering a cure. The movie’s production has been one of the most troubled in recent years with an ambitious shooting schedule and numerous re-writes and re-shoots, even up to the end of 2012, taking the movie’s budget up to around the $200 million mark. If the busy screening, star appeal and word of mouth I’ve already encountered are anything to go by though, the movie is sure to make a very tidy profit within the next couple of weeks.

I try to avoid reviews before I write my own in case they inform my opinion but I’d heard a couple of mixed verdicts before seeing this movie. Coupled with the production troubles, I wasn’t expecting a brilliant film. I was pleasantly surprised then by World War Z (Z) as it excited, entertained and scared me from start to finish.

Breakfast on Pluto

"Well, fuck me pink with a hairy arse!"

A boy is born in conservative 1940s Ireland to a Priest (Liam Neeson) and an unknown woman who flees to London after the birth. Bought up by a strict Catholic foster mother he shows signs of difference at an early age when he is caught in a dress and heels. By the 1970s the teenage Patrick ‘Kitten’ Braden (Cillian Murphy) is a proud and open cross dresser, still living in the small, conservative Irish town. As he gets older he wonders about his mother and discovers that she fled to England. He decides to try to find her and along the way joins a glam rock band, has brushes with the IRA, turns to prostitution and comes close to death on a number of occasions.

The entire film is set against the backdrop of the ‘troubles’ in Ireland during the 1970s. Kitten comes face to face with both sides of the war on a number of occasions and the conflict forms a major stand throughout the story. Another stand is her struggle to fit in with a world that tends to reject her choice of lifestyle and her difficulty with everyone taking life so seriously. The film is cut up into thirty or so chapters. Each is numbered and titled but the plot flows smoothly throughout. This mostly worked well to set up a scene but did become a little tiresome after a while.