Although there are a ton of new Netflix movies to choose from every month, this time I turned to my favorite creature feature film. World War Z after it became available on the best streaming service. Although I have seen the blockbuster at least three times, World War Z still makes my heart race with every exciting twist and turn as the zombies launch a wild attack across the world.
So you can understand my surprise when I found out that the highest-grossing zombie movie of all time has a rather disappointing Rotten Tomatoes score of 67%, which also means it doesn’t meet our criteria for a spot on the best Netflix movies list.
When World War Z Released in 2013, it was a commercial success, grossing over $540 million at the box office and even becoming one of the best zombie video games. World War Z was praised for reviving the zombie subgenre, which had been silent for decades after, for example, 28 days later and the king of zombie movies Dawn of the Dead. Variety agreed with this point and wrote in its review: “Brad Pitt’s much-maligned World War Z proves to be a surprisingly intelligent, captivating and imaginative addition to the zombie film canon.”
But with good reviews come bad ones too – and in this case, the film was criticized a lot for not staying true to the original. That may be important to some viewers, but the thrilling action sequences and Pitt’s portrayal of a realistic hero armed with a desire to save his family, not the world, make this one of the best horror films in my opinion.
Why World War Z is worth watching
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Based on the novel by Max Brooks World War Z: An Oral History of Zombie War, World War Z starring Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator who embarks on a deadly mission around the world to stop a zombie outbreak that is destroying humanity.
World War Z was met with backlash because it deviated from what Brooks had presented in his book World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. In the novel, the undead are the more “traditional”, slow zombies, and relentlessly spread the pathogen by biting or scratching living people. In the film adaptation, however, the zombies are animalistic, fast zombies that run and pounce on their targets. Their sole focus is to spread the infection by biting their victim, but they also quickly lose interest once they have attacked someone and immediately move on to another, uninfected person.
It is possible that World War Z fell victim to the now-popular fast-moving zombie concept, as the film underwent many production changes and reshoots because it was deemed too political and complex when trying to adapt it to the source material, according to Inverse.
Fans of the book were disappointed by this, but I think they succeeded in translating the core principles of the book, namely that the world is completely unprepared for global disasters and for each other, into an immersive cinematic spectacle.
The non-stop action and the fact that you are immediately thrown into the zombie chaos is what I love about World War Z, so I was crushed to hear that a sequel was scrapped due to alleged budget issues, dashing any hopes for a promising new zombie franchise. But while I yearn for a sequel to continue the story, Screen Rant revealed that a World War Z There may be a remake in the works, which would be an ideal opportunity to continue the plot of the original novel and attract new viewers to the same world.
