A 'War' Between Book and Blockbuster

by Brett Parker

World War Z, the apocalyptic horror novel by Max Brooks, has to be one of the most gripping and intelligent horror tales I’ve ever read.  Inspired by Studs Turkel’s The Good War, Brooks used the gambit of wartime interviews to imagine an account of a devastating zombie war on a global scale.  As people from around the world recounted how their individual countries dealt with a ramped and hostile zombie threat, Brooks shrewdly illuminated allegorical connections between government incompetence, class warfare, and human negligence.  The scary revelation from the work is how the arrogance, carelessness, and cynicism that have hindered our own progress in everyday society would royally screw us over in the face of becoming zombie snack food.  

Considering the grand scope of the novel and the way it packs in more troubling ideas than a muckraking political documentary, it would’ve taken a Herculean act from the cinematic gatekeepers for the book to leap to the screen with its dignity intact.  So it’s not without a certain Klaus Kinski-like frustration to discover that Marc Forster’s big Hollywood adaptation of the novel pretty much just extracts all the blockbuster elements from the book while completely discarding all the brainier elements and uncomfortable allegories.  Yet the fact that the movie turns out to be watchable may be a small miracle in itself.  Vanity Fair reported earlier this year how the making of the film was plagued with on-set drama, a ballooning budget, an incoherent first cut, and an expensive, blood-soak ending that had to be completely discarded.  The good news is that the final product is able to overcome all of those annoyances to present itself as a surprisingly enjoyable popcorn flick.

As the film opens, we meet Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) a former United Nations employee now living in Philadelphia with his wife (Mireille Enos) and two kids (Sterling Jerins and Abigail Hargrove).  As they sit in heavy city traffic one day, a commotion erupts with people running from an unknown threat that soon turns into all-out chaos.  As Gerry tries to make sense of his surroundings, he soon discovers that corpses of people are rising up and turning into hostile zombies.  Gerry tries protecting his family while hordes of fast-moving and demonic-looking zombies begin chomping on every live human in sight, and a helicopter from the U.N. shows up just in the nick of time to rescue them as the City of Brotherly Love falls to the plagued.  

The helicopter flies them off to a U.S. naval fleet off the coast of New York City and it’s there where Gerry learns that a zombie virus is quickly taking over the world.  A relentless zombie infection has been spreading on a worldwide scale and countries are rapidly crumbling under the vast reach of this mysterious sickness.  Because of his expertise as a former U.N. investigator, Gerry is recruited to help discover the origin of the virus to see if a cure can be found.  This journey will take him all over the world to places like South Korea, Jerusalem, and Wales where he’ll meet weary survivors, dodge terrifying zombie attacks, and observe the strange peculiarities of the undead to see if any weaknesses can be spotted.  

Once you accept the fact that this movie wants nothing to do with the novel’s intelligence, you’ll find yourself refreshed by the unfussy way it churns out the blockbuster goods then acquits itself like a mob boss who just had his charges dropped.  Due mostly to a PG-13 rating that hopes to net wider ticket sales, this zombie flick isn’t so much a horror gore-fest as it is an adventure thrill ride.  The big idea is to hop around foreign locales while wheeling out the latest in zombie effects.  Of course, none of these global pitstops really say anything significant about foreign governments or cultural reactions to a crisis situation, but as far as zombie thrills go, this is all more entertaining than usual.  A scene where zombies frantically pile on top of one another like rats to scale a giant wall in Jerusalem is a truly epic sight and a zombie outbreak on an airplane in flight makes for a golden action sequence.  This movie certainly gets brownie points for trying to add creativity and adrenaline to a horror scenario we’ve seen a million times before.

David Fincher once pointed out that Brad Pitt doesn’t really have a towering iconic role such as James Bond or Han Solo to call his own (unless Tyler Durden counts.  The Fight Club leader has his own posters, but does he have his own action figure?).  So it’s pretty obvious that the producers here are hoping to turn his character into the Indiana Jones of zombie flicks.  It’s not a bad sell, really, for Pitt’s weathered calm is a nice balance between the terrified hysteria and nihilistic cynicism we usually get from humans facing the undead.  His performance hints at how Robert Redford probably would’ve handled himself in a zombie movie, and those two opposing temperaments between star and material would’ve proved just as compelling as it does here.  

The film’s ending is so jarringly an open-ended sequel set-up that we don’t even realize the climax is actually the climax until the ending notes that we just witnessed the climax.  There’s definitely a “is that all?” feeling as the end credits approach.  Considering that the film clocks in at just under two hours and doesn’t exactly wear out its welcome, I can’t help but wonder if the filmmakers could’ve tacked on the ultraviolent original ending.  Reportedly, it revolved around an epic, crimson-covered decapitation fest in Russia where Pitt tore through zombies like Rambo tore through the Vietnamese.  Since this is a movie that swings for the popcorn fences, I don’t feel that ending would’ve been terribly frowned upon.  Anyways, it’s a testament to the movie we actually have here that it has me looking forward to future installments.  I just hope, for the love of Romero, that the sequels study up on the source novel and incorporate the more intelligent and philosophical points from the book into the script.  World War Z proves that it’s one of the more fun recent zombie flicks, now it’s time to prove that it can be one of the more thought-provoking ones as well.  

An 'Internship' Worth Taking

by Brett Parker

The Internship shows Vince Vaughn playing a man hard-up for decent work who turns to Google, considered one of the best places to work in the world, to help him out of his rut.  Since the credits reveal that Vaughn helped develop this film’s script, it’s not hard to see how this plot could all be a thinly-veiled peak at the current stage of his own career.  For it’s been a while since Vaughn has made a decent comedy (hardly anyone would consider Couples Retreat and The Dilemma to be on the same level as Old School) and perhaps he’s looking to the inherent fascination of the Google company to generate a likable flick.  Along for the ride is his old Wedding Crashers pal Owen Wilson, undoubtedly so the duo can try and recreate the magic from their last bromantic collaboration.  The Internship is nowhere near as funny as that earlier movie, but I appreciate the effort and I find myself strangely drawn to the overwhelming sunshine this Hollywood product blasts through the screen.

The film opens with watch salesmen Billy McMahon (Vaughn) and Nick Campbell (Wilson) being laid off from their job when their employer goes out of business.  Since most watch sales are being transacted online nowadays, the need for face-to-face salesmanship is quickly being diminished.  Realizing that their personal skills won’t net them much in today’s job market, Billy comes up with a plan to score the duo an internship at Google, the company revolved around the popular search engine website.  Google is widely regarded as one of the best companies to work for, due to its increasing popularity, endless perks, and innovative growth.  Billy convinces Nick that mastering an internship would not only get them jobs at one of the happiest organizations on Earth, but might even provide them with technological skills that would give them a leg-up in an ever-changing world.  

Thanks to a goofy yet sincere webcam interview, the pair score an internship and they soon discover that Google truly is a Willy Wonka-like nirvana for techie freaks.  The only problem is that most of the young interns are so intellectually advanced that they make Billy and Nick look like thick-headed dinosaurs.  Billy and Nick try to put their best resources forward, but they keep getting pummeled by the computer geniuses around them.  The only way the duo can hope to keep afloat is to find clever ways to apply their personal skills and charismatic personalities in accomplishing increasingly difficult digital tasks.  

The Internship has been accused of being an overblown product-placement commercial for the Google company.  It more or less is, but so what?  Google is certainly one of the most colorful, innovative, and generous places to work, and it’s been ripe for the Hollywood limelight to show up for quite some time.  Yet the use of Google here isn’t completely vapid, for the script is out to shine light on the ordeal of an older generation completely bewildered by today’s technological landscape.  Vaughn and Wilson clearly belong to a generation that once upon a time didn’t have to rely heavily on smartphones, online social networking, and elaborate computer smarts to function in the real world.  Their oafish fumbling through the Google world not only reflects their own anxieties but also the anxieties of many older Americans.  The comforting revelation here is that the fella’s humanity, which contains down-to-earth charm, bar banter, and warm face-to-face engagements, triumphs infinitely in the face of the digital age.

Vaughn and Wilson have developed such a superb comic wordplay in their own rights that they’ve accumulated a peculiar gift for making deranged dialogue sound like it’s coming from a genuine place.  The Internship relies too heavily on their interplay, putting a strain on it that hinders the Wedding Crashers exuberance it’s gunning for.  Most of the blame can probably be attributed to director Shawn Levy (Date Night, Just Married), who hasn’t exactly proven to be a masterful comic director.  While I enjoyed his Real Steel, I find most of his films to be tame and dimwitted comedies that lack any real bite or edge.  While he may deliver competence, he hardly delivers any real laughs, and that doesn’t exactly make him the ideal candidate to indulge in Vaughn and Wilson’s wildest impulses.  Yet The Internship is one of Levy’s more tolerable comedies, perhaps because he knew enough to sorta stay out of Vaughn and Wilson’s way and even provide a cameo for one of their Frat Pack buddies whose become the patron saint of insane cameos.  This is all really Shawn Levy trying to be Todd Phillips, which is considerably more enjoyable than Shawn Levy being Shawn Levy.

The Internship doesn’t exactly provide a surplus of laughs, but I found myself enjoying the movie anyways because its blind optimism about today’s world is kind of charming.  One of the things we’ve come to expect from studio fluff is positive energy magnified in a heightened, candy-coated reality that suggests backhanded ways everyday moviegoers can deal with life’s problems.  And when that positive energy is being served up by two gifted comic actors in one of the most interesting places in the country, I kind of don’t mind meeting it halfway.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t leave the theater feeling sunny vibes, and I think sunny vibes are a fair trade-off with today’s ticket prices.

A 'Purge' From Happy Thoughts

by Brett Parker

When horror flicks are on their game, they can pack more unwelcome ideological thoughts than any hotbed political thriller.  That’s why it’s hard not to marvel at The Purge, a simple and economical home invasion thriller that touches on an ocean of decaying morals lurking beneath the American dream.  To be sure, the movie is an assembly of horror movie standards we’ve seen many times before, but the way they evoke disturbing secrets about the world we live in now is rather impressive.  Reflecting on the movie long after the credits have rolled, I’d have to reach back to Funny Games or the original Swedish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to recall a thriller that unnerved me to my core like this one.

The film imagines a future America where once a year, the nation hosts a 12-hour period where all crime is legal.  A random holiday devotes it’s evening hours to allowing every american the chance to rob, steal, rape, break, and murder everything in their path with zero repercussions.  All medical and police personal are suspended during that time, and Americans waste no time in destroying property and blowing their fellow man away with bloody glee.  The next day, the bodies are cleaned up and property is restored and the nation gets back to normal.  Supposedly, this window of release for the citizens has allowed the country to grow into a dream haven where unemployment and crime is at an all-time low, allowing the blissful end to justify the horrifying means.  

We follow an upper-class suburban family during one of these annual purges.  Security expert James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) has made a fortune selling state-of-the-art security systems, allowing himself and his privileged neighbors to lock themselves down extra-tight during the chaotic holiday.  So Sandin plans on spending his purge like he does every year: by locking himself inside his home with his lovely wife, Mary (Lena Headey), and his two children, Charlie (Max Burkholder) and Zoey (Adelaide Kane).  Yet as the annual purge commences, scary violence shows up right on their doorstep when Charlie allows a Bloody Stranger (Edwin Hodge) to seek shelter in their home.  It turns out the Stranger is hiding from a group of upper-class psychopaths who are hungry to kill him.  A Polite Stranger (Rhys Wakefield) who leads the group informs Sandin that if they don’t give up their target, then they will penetrate the security system and murder everyone inside.  This causes the ordinary family to question their morals and strength as they try to wrestle down their bloody houseguest and fend off the bloodthirsty gang gnawing at their front gates.

The Purge is one of those horror flicks that efficiently uses limited, low-budget resources to evoke giant scares with cinematic shrewdness.  Even though the film’s central idea hinges on a deadly event played out on a grand national scale, the film’s action is entirely confined to a suburban home, using dark shadows and things-that-go-bump-in-the-night to get its scares.  Director James DeMonaco gets assists from tons of past flicks, including The Strangers, Last House on the Left, and Funny Games, but the sick ideas about America blasted underneath the familiarities sure do heat things up.  Part of you wonders if a greater movie could be made if the cameras went outside into the night of violence (especially through the eyes of the Bloody Stranger), so it’s a testament to this film’s restrictions that it gets your imagination working overtime.  

The Purge is filled to the brim with so many troubling thoughts about society that I wouldn’t be surprised to see it inspire hundreds of analytical blog posts, or maybe even a few college papers.  Of course, the film’s most immediate and alarming idea is that the American people’s worst impulses would need to be filtered, not eradicated, in order for the country to improve.  And if our darkest recesses were allowed to come out and play for the night, then minorities and the poor would probably be at the top of the casualties list, an observation that’s felt through the Polite Stranger’s obsessive need to kill a homeless black “swine.”  Since rich white people would obviously have the best chances of survival, you would think they would form a community of teamwork and charity to help each other out, but one of The Purge’s more disturbing insights reveals that rich people’s egotism and resentments would cause them to turn on each other, providing a chilling theory on why this country is dealing with so many problems in the first place.  All these collective thoughts make us ponder that keeping the entire movie confined to a house isn’t just a money-saving gambit, but also represents how most of the audience would realistically deal with a purge: by rigorously defending their own turf while turning a blind eye to the chaos outside their door.

As all-American types who contais a reservoir of scrappiness and moral conflict, the main cast acquits themselves rather nicely.  While their increasingly stupid behavior is undoubtedly the worst thing about the movie, both Max Burkholder and Adelaide Kane embody everyday, jittery teenagers convincingly.  Lena Headley takes a seemingly thankless role and proves that she can be one of the most resourceful and sexiest of suburban housewives.  Rhys Wakefield is wonderfully mannered as a white-bread psychopath, making you wonder if he studied The Joker or Patrick Bateman more for his performance.  And of course, it’s always fun to watch Ethan Hawke bring his dedicated thespian skills to a Hollywood product.  Hawke is a pleasure to watch in material like this thanks to his duck-to-water understanding that generic fluff can inspire just as many interesting performances as indie arthouse flicks.  He makes for a fine avatar through this horror ride, especially in a scene where he shows dazzling true grit pounding away on two violent intruders who’ve found their way into his home.  Since Hollywood will eventually remake everything one day, and the Rambo series will undoubtedly be on the menu, Ethan Hawke gets my unapologetic vote to play the super-soldier.  

While it’s typical of horror films to inspire a long, tiresome series of watered-down sequels, I actually think The Purge has enough material here to inspire more thoughtful and epic chapters.  Perhaps for the next go around, the story can go out into the world for a future year’s purge, and we can witness firsthand the vast landscape of massive bloodshed and startling mayhem.  There’s so many ideological sparks in this film alone that the possibilities for future sequels are endless.  For if the filmmakers keep things brainier as opposed to indulgent, then The Purge has quite the potential to grow into one of the most significant and terrifying horror franchises we’ve ever had.