World War Z on DVD and Blu-Ray

It may look like a cartoon caricature version of a zombie flick but what World War Z has to offer is surprisingly impressive. You've heard of movies giving away all of their best parts in the trailers. This one actually does the opposite; that is unless you actually like seeing video game style hordes of zombies defying gravity and tumbling across the screen like CGI soup. What the commercials don't show is that this movie is not so much about ridiculously fast moving zombies as much as it is about quick thinking. With only seconds to react most of the fun comes from finding out how the main characters discover ways to survive.
Right out of the gate this movies wastes no time to get exciting. Don't worry about snoring through clichéd character developments or boring subplots. Within the first few minutes the tension is already high. The main character has a family to protect and that's enough information for audiences to relate to, there's no need for anything more specific. As bigger pieces of the plot unfold the action keeps rolling and that's what really makes this film special. It never slows down. Most movies have at least one campfire moment where everyone sits around and gets to know each , or there's that inevitable quiet before the storm heart to heart meant entirely for the purpose of making people sad when someone dies. World War Z has its own unique way of doing that and just when you think you've seen it all before something changes.
The terrible special effects and zombie attacks actually work to this films advantage if you could imagine. Whether it was done on purpose or not, the lack of realism allows the suspension of disbelief to become more prominent. It's easier to accept the impossible ways characters escape death when there is an understanding that it's all meant in good fun. This is not a typical scary monster movie. It's more of an action adventure. In that category it does great. Does anyone actually believe Arnold Schwarzenegger can fly a Harrier jet one handed while wrestling a terrorist with the other? No. Does anyone enjoy watching it happen? Absolutely.
The problem with World War Z is that it could have been so much better. Based on the popular novel written by Max Brooks (that apparently only donated its title) the potential was to be massive. This could have been an epic retelling of a zombie apocalypse explained in a manner that audiences have never seen before. Instead it's a little new, but not enough to leave a permanent mark in the history of the genre. People will most likely remember this one as the fast paced zombie flick that ended up being better than they thought but worse than what they hoped for.
With the rumor mill churning about production difficulties it's a miracle this movie even turned out watchable at all. Normally conflicts on the set are a recipe for failure so there is something to be said about how well World War Z recovered. It was reported that the ending was originally yet another large sequence involving a flood of zombies and that some of it was even filmed before Marc Foster came to the realization that it wasn't going to work. Whether there was a troubling conversation about it or not, in the end the final decision was the right one.