The Conjuring

A common complaint I hear about horror movies is that they are predictable. if you have seen a few scary movies, you can always tell where the scares are coming. Someone looks down into a sink, you know when they look back up, something scary will be in the mirror. Close the fridge door and BAM, someone will be there. A scary sound, quiet creepy music, then a cat jumps out and screams. It is a genre that only has a few real moves. My students said that scary movies did not scare them. They were too unrealistic to be scary in a world where they live with real fear. I do not want to go into some long post 9-11 babble here, but that is what my students said. They live in real fear, so slashers, ghosts and demons do not scare them. However, horror movies still do insane business at the box office, so the genre is doing something right. Summer is not typically a big horror movie time. This year we already saw the Purge come and go pretty quickly. it made like 75% of its profit on opening weekend. The movie had an insanely wonderful premise, but the execution was massively flawed leaving me unfulfilled. I love scary movies. I love all the different kind of horror. I love monsters, ghosts, slasher films, demon possession films, all of it. The Conjuring was that rare horror movie that was getting good reviews from critics, who are generally not impressed with horror films. It had a great creative team behind it. Guys who worked on the first Saw, Paranormal Activity and the best horror movie of the last few years, Insidious were all apart of this story. Plus, unlike so many horror movies that say they are based on a true story, The Conjuring actually is. Ed and Lorraine Warren were actual people who actually were ghost/demon hunters. They were hugely successful/infamous in the 1970s and were the people who brought the Ammityville house story to the world. The Conjuring is truly based in real life. I have no idea how much of it is true, or anything like that. However, you can see the artifacts from the two cases covered in this film, so who knows.

Ed and Lorraine Warren(Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are professional ghost hunters who also give seminars on their cases. They have national media attention and they keep the artifacts from their cases locked in a room in their house that a priest blesses once a month. They are not affiliated with the church, but they are respected by the church and they are the ones who gather evidence of possible other worldly beings roaming the Earth. They know how to determine if something supernatural is going on, or if your house is just squeaking. Lorraine is very in tune to the spiritual world. She is a medium and Ed handles most of the technical stuff. When the movie starts they are at a seminar talking about the Annabelle Doll case. It is a super creepy doll that these twenty somethings allowed a spirit to inhabit, but goes crazy. This is our introduction to the these people and they are about to get very important as they get called on another case. Roger and Carolyn Perron (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) recently bought a house out in the middle of nowhere and they moved their four daughters in to begin fresh. it is not long before the creepiness begins. First, the dog refuses to go in the house, which is the first clue that some seriously twisted stuff is going on. Late at night when all of the kids are asleep, one of the daughters feels a tugging at her leg. There is a boarded up basement, one daughter sleep walks and keeps banging into the wardrobe. Carolyn keeps waking up with bruises that she has no recollection of getting. From there it starts to get very scary. The daughter whose leg was getting tugged sees something in the corner staring at her, the other daughter sees nothing, until she feels something, but we never see it. The mom hears children giggling when all of her kids are asleep. As it piles up, eventually Carolyn seeks out the Warrens and they discover a whole mess of insanity at that house, but it began with a Salem Witch. Now it stalks the house and possesses any mother who lives there and then kills children.

The Conjuring is, far and away, the most effective horror movie I have seen in a very long time. There are others that are good, but 90% of horror movies completely fall apart with the ending. The Conjuring does not. it has a solid ending with just a subtle nod to the possibility of continuing. There is no abrupt shaky camera ending, no totally bizarre whacked out ending. It ties up the story in a believable way and throughout the movies scares the crap out of you. In my introduction I mentioned how horror movies have a tendency to be predictable. The Conjuring takes exactly what we expect and throws it in our face. In the first truly scary scene, after the terrifying doll prologue, we see nothing. The daughter is panicked because she sees something and the other daughter can feel it eventually, but we see nothing, so later in the film, when that same daughter sees something, we expect one of two things 1) that we will see nothing, or 2) we will have something jump out at us from the wardrobe, bursting out through the clothing. Neither one of those things happen and what does happen sent the entire sold out auditorium to jump or make noise. I think I even screamed a little bit and I never scream at movies. This is what the Conjuring does so well. It understands the tropes of horror movies. People go into the basement and nothing happens, then someone goes into the basement and what happens is terrifying even though it is in the trailer, but when someone is forced into the basement, some truly scary stuff goes down. We cannot even get mad at the character, because she did not choose to be down there. There are a dozen of these creepy little moments that just build and build and the movie succeeds in ways most horror movies do not.

Yes, creepy children, pictures falling down, someone dragged by their hair by an unseen entity, a creepy basement and demons are all familiar territory for horror, but what this movie does so well, is it uses those familiar topics in fresh and exciting ways. Plus, the acting is above what you normally get in horror. The four girls are all great, the parents are great and Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are exceptional. They not only sell the horror, they sell the desperation, the sadness, the worry and eventually the will to beat this thing. However, for me, the most impressive thing about this film is how it looks. James Wan, a talented director, has this movie looking down right Hitchcockian. Not saying the movie is at the level of an Alfred Hitchcock film, but Hitchcock essentially made horror films, but he elevated them because of how exquisitely he shot them. Every shot looked perfect. Wan achieves that here. I love all of the wide shots of the house, and how he seemed to know exactly when to use those wide shots. The house is dressed perfectly, so we are constantly looking at everything in the frame. There is this wonderfully shot sequence towards the end where we have two separate scenes of action going on in the house and the camera twists and turns between the two, giving them equal importance, leveling the insanity of a demon possession with the very real fear of looking for a missing child. The camera weaves between the two with such fluid motion, it feels alive. However, the best sequence of the film does not even involve the main characters. It involves the Warren's daughter. Shot with this perfect wide shot, the daughter, in colorful pajamas is walking the down red stairs, with the wallpaper almost matching the daughter and as she is walking the hallway is getting darker and closing in on her, and the way it is shot is so wonderful that I was not sure if I was scared or just out of breath at how gorgeous the shoot was. If nothing else, The Conjuring is the most beautifully shot horror movie in ages.

I love a good scary movie and The Conjuring delivers on everything. There were great jumps, great scares, an interesting story, and just some gorgeous cinematography and perfectly maneuvered camera work. It is that rare horror movie where you actually hope for a sequel, instead of just accepting that there will be one. if the series follows the Warren's different cases, there is no reason to believe that this cannot turn into one of the best horror franchises out there, if they are able to keep the team intact. James Wan has impressed me before, but here he takes it to a whole new level. His direction and understanding of light and dark and quiet and loud, and pacing and how to turn our own expectations against us made this movie the horror event of the year.

P.S. That Clapping hands game is straight up perfect for the horror genre. How did no one do that before this movie?

Final Grade: A

Pacific Rim

There is a little moment during the epic awesomeness that is the Hong Kong battle sequence that sort of encapsulates why I love this movie so much. I will explain what all of it means a little further down, but here is the moment. The Jeager Gipsy Danger has just demolished a Kaiju and is on its way to defend Hong Kong and take on another crazy Kaiju and the Jaeger gently steps over a bridge in the middle of town instead of just crashing through it. It is that level of humanity that pushes Pacific Rim above so many of the thoughtless action movies that we get today. The entire world is at stake, our very essence of humanity is literally being destroyed and it looks like we are in our last days, and this giant machine being operated by two humans steps over a bridge that, if they are successful in defending Hong Kong, could still be used. It is the smallest of touches in an otherwise massive hulking film,but it spoke to the director's idea of humanity. Plus, the devil really is in the details and in a summer where people are focusing on the amount of property damage Superman caused, it was such a breath of fresh air to see this little moment. Of course, Pacific Rim is ultimately about giant human controlled machines battling Dinosaur looking monsters, so the little details are going to get overlooked in favor of all of the awesome.

in 2014 San Francisco was attacked by an alien (Kaiju) from the sea. Some sort of fissure opens up and a portal was created allowing these aliens to attack from the sea. One city went down, then another and another before humanity pooled its resources and the Jaeger Program was created. Jaegers are giant machines controlled by humans. The humans are synced up to the machine a process called drifting. Two humans control each Jaeger. They operate inside the Jaeger's head and their movements control the Jaegers. When the Jaeger program first launched, humanity started winning and soon the Kaiju were treated like jokes, and the Jaegers were the new celebrities, but with each attack, the individual Kaiju were learning how to combat the program and they were winning. Raleigh Beckett (Charlie Hunnam) was a Jaeger pilot until he lost his partner in a particularly brutal attack. The two pilots are connected in the drift. They see each other's memories and feel each other's pain and they were still connected when Raleigh's partner was taken. He moved on from piloting and is now helping to build a giant wall that has been funded by the Government. The Jaeger program has been defunded in favor of this wall, but Stacker Pentacost (Idris Elba) finds private funding to fund one last Jaeger mission. The mission is to go right to the fizzure and drop a nuclear bomb into the portal and destroy the connection from the alien world to the human world. He has 4 working Jaegers, but needs Beckett back to pilot his old Jaeger again. Once Beckett agrees they are off to Hong Kong to meet the other Jaeger pilots and a young woman named Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi). Mako is in charge of lining up possible co-pilots for Beckett, but when it is all said and done, Mako turns out to be the best person for the job, but Pentacost refuses to let her, until he relents.

Beckett and Mako are drift compatible, but the drift is not a very fun place if you cannot control your emotions and during the test run, Mako gets sucked into her own memories in one of the most effective scenes in the film. This flashback gives us back story on Mako, back story on Pentacost, puts a very real face on the loss of human life, shows off impressive acting from a little girl and takes nothing away from the driving story of the film. It might be the most perfectly placed flashback I can recall in a film. It is a gut wrenching scene as the child actor looks truly terrified for her life. It is another moment in the film that is surely overshadowed by the big action sequences later, but it is another key moment where this giant blockbuster shows the humanity. Meanwhile we are introduced to two very different scientists, Dr. Newton Giezler (The wonderfully wacky Charlie Day) and Gottlieb ( the perfectly uptight Burn Gorman). Giezler is your more hands on, rock star scientist who studies the Kaiju up close and Giezler is a numbers guy. He believes the attacks will get more frequent and that soon they will see two Kaiju at a time and then 3. Giezler wants to drift with a tiny piece of Kaiju brain to find out what they really want and when he is told no, he does it anyway and he sees fragments of a colonization. He wants to drift with the brain again, so he heads off to find a black market Kaiju parts dealer named Hannibal Chow( Ron Perlman).

Now comes the epic Hong Kong battle. Two Kaiju and 4 Jaegers fighting turn this action sequence into one of the single best action sequences ever. I mean this ranks up there with the T-Rex getting loose in Jurassic Park, the battle for Helm's Deep in The Two Towers and last years amazing battle for New York in The Avengers. The effects of this film are mind blowing. Each Jaeger has a personality and each Kaiju has a personality. The design of the Kaiju are stunning. Each has a specific look modeled after creatures we have here. Dr. Geizler mentions that these creatures tried colonizing Earth once before, the dinosaurs, so that is the basis for these Kaiju. They are a marvel to behold and somehow the action between all of these giant creatures is smooth. The CGI and the practical effects work hand in hand to create this wonderfully fluid action. The constant water beating on the creatures creates a sense that these beings are really there. Nothing goes through them. We can see droplets of water hitting off of all of these massive beings. It is really quite spectacular to watch. As the Kaiju adjust to our Jaegers they come with new weapons and new ways of leveling the Jaegers, but the Jaegers find a way. In this insane action sequence, two of the Jaegers are quickly dismembered and a third is pretty quickly left incapacitated. This leaves only Gipsy Danger and the first time team of Mako and Beckett. It leads us to a truly stunning action sequence. By the time the remaining Kaiju spreads its wings, you are already wowed, but then Gipsy Danger opens up its sword and all bets are off. It really is the key sequence in the film. Shot with precision, and paced exquisitely, The Hong Kong battle sequence is worth the price of admission.

Yes, some of the dialog is cheesy, and occasionally the acting is a bit stiff, but Pacific Rim is such a great summer blockbuster. The humor actually works, the effects are insane, the scope is truly epic, the story serviceable for an action movie and the heart is clearly there. The climax is a bit too predictable, but it is still effective. I even found myself choking up during Pentacost's "Today we are cancelling the Apocalypse" speech which does not happen very often during action movies. Idris Elba's Pentacost joins the ranks of great leaders in film. A man struggling with his own mortality still being the man who remains strong for his troops. He makes every costume looks phenomenal and he brings this great energy to the film. Rinko Kikuchi does great work as Mako. She is a strong, yet vulnerable woman who holds her own in a fight, and understand the value of respect. She is a total bad ass, but is not afraid of her emotional side either. It is a great sight in an action film to see a fully formed woman who is never once the object of the male gaze. In fact, Charlie Hunnam is the only one objectified in this film, but with abs like his, he probably does not mind one bit. Pacific Rim is the best summer blockbuster you are going to find this year and it would be the best summer blockbuster in many other years as well. it is shame it never quite found its audience.

Monsters University

Monsters Inc is not the best Pixar movie out there. It is, however, the most underrated Pixar movie. It is a personal favorite of mine and when I heard I would get to revisit two of my favorite Pixar characters, I was stoked. I loved the teaser trailers and how they were playing up the college experience. I did not have super high expectations because I never do with sequels/prequels, but they did a very nice job of marketing and selling the movie. There is an issue with Pixar though, and that is that I have come to expect greatness every time out. After the trifecta of Wall-E, UP, and Toy Story 3, I have begun to fear that they will never reach that again. Therefore, I tried to really stick to my lowered expectations this time out.

Mike Wizowski (Billy Crystal) has had one dream his whole life: to be a scarer. As a kid he visited Monsters Incorporated and met the best scarer ever and that scarer gave him a baseball cap of his college, Monsters University. Mike has a problem though, he is little and not scary and everyone underestimates him. He gets into Monsters University and is a scaring major. He rooms with Randy and they are good friends, but Randy wants to be cool and Mike just wants to get straight As. Mike knows everything. He can ace every test, but is he scary? No, not really. On the flip side is Sully. Sully is a giant behemoth of a monster whose natural scaring ability makes him super lazy. He and Mike become rivals and after an accident gets them both kicked out of the scare program, they have to team up to win the annual Scare Games. Their team consists of the outcasts, the non scary monsters, but they have to find a way to band together and win the games.

Monsters University is a cute, fluffy movie without much else going on. So much of the comedy comes from the first 35 minutes when college is still the main part. I loved all of the little collegiate details they get right, especially when they come back in January and it is all cold and rainy and everyone is miserable. I got a kick out of watching an octopus style monster downing a bunch of coffee right before finals. I also loved the opening stuff in the quad where everyone was trying to get monsters to join their clubs. I feel like animated fluffy monster movies are aimed at kids, so it is nice to see that they still throw the adults something. However, I did feel like a majority of this movie is aimed squarely at kids. There is nothing wrong with that at all, but at a scant 100 minutes, I still felt like the movie ran a little long. It did not have enough legs for me. The biggest reason I love Monsters Inc is the chemistry between Mike and Sully. This is problematic in this film because they spend most of the movie not liking each other very much. They robbed me of this great duo through the whole movie and it just did not work for me as much as I would have liked it to.

Yet there is some great creativity at work here. The Scare Games are tons of fun to watch. Most of it is taken from other stories and tweaked to fit the genre, but I got a kick out of the competition where panels would turn and they had to ignore the teens, but scare the kids. The panels had clever audio to them for the teenagers. And I absolutely love the idea of the simulated scarer. The little details are very neat. I love the idea that there are a bunch of different kind of scares and you have to know which kind to use on which kid and, in all honesty, I would have been much more fascinated by a film that discusses those, but that would not make a very entertaining kids film. I think the problem boils down to the teaser traler. The teaser trailer made the film look like it was a big college movie with Monster style parties and with Mike used as a disco ball. There were all these funny pranks in the teaser and none of that is in the movie. It moves through your basic college stuff quickly to get to the real story, but I guess I wish the story had been more about the college experience and more of a coming of age tale and less of the contest film.

I hope that this is the end for these characters, except maybe in Pixar shorts. I am not sure I need to know what happens after the scaring gives way to the laughing. I am a bit bummed I know what happened before they became the best scaring team in history. Sometimes it is okay to just tell one story about characters and just let the rest be a mystery. Pixar has created some of the most memorable movies for young people that are beloved by people of all ages. Maybe they should just focus on creating new characters not new adventures for the characters we already love.

White House Down

It is impossible to talk about White House Down without mentioning Olympus has Fallen, a film that came out a few months ago with a similar story. The White House is taken over by terrorists and one man must save the Country and possibly the world. Olympus has Fallen starred Gerard Butler and White House Down stars Channing Tatum. Olympus has Fallen was very serious in tone, featured super patriotic music and feature plenty of slow motion shots of the American Flag, and a gorgeous slow motion shot of a bullet hole filled American Flag falling to the ground. It bordered on ridiculous in its serious tone, but I appreciated that it did so without settling for irony. Olympus has Fallen featured North Korea as the threat and the President was a complete hostage. White House Down has a more action oriented story, it goes for laughs in place of serious patriotism, the President is not a hostage and there are no slow motion shots of the American Flag. Also, the terrorists are domestic, not Korean. If you think these two movies are the same thing, you have clearly not watched both movies, or you clearly do not understand how the tone of a film can make that film unique. From here on out, there will be no mention of Olympus has Fallen.

John Cale (Tatum) is bored with his protection detail of the Speaker of the House (Rickard Jenkins). He really wants a shot to be on the President's Secret Service and he wants this because his daughter, Emily (Joey King) is obsessed with President Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) and the White House. Cale and his daughter are not on good terms and Cale would do anything to have his daughter stop calling him by his first name. Somehow Cale gets an interview at the Secret Service, not so fortunately, the woman who does the hiring, Finnerty (Maggie Gylenhall) remembers him from their past and knows he never follows through on anything and is not dependable. That all changes when the White House is taken by some crazy terrorists while Cale and his daughter are there for the tour. I will not say much about the terrorists because I do not want to spoil anything, but as I said earlier, they are domestic and they are after some serious cash. At first they have the president, but Cale springs into action, grabs the president and they use the tricks of the White House to avoid being captured again. All the while, Emily has become a national celebrity/hero because before she was caught, she managed to take video footage of the terrorists and upload it to her Youtube channel.

Channing Tatum has emerged into one of my favorite guys to watch on screen. I do not say this lightly. He is not the best actor, or the funniest or most charming actor, but he plays to his strengths and when given the chance to do something interesting, he jumps. In his first real starring role in a big budget action movie where the movie will be all on his broad muscular shoulders, Tatum succeeds like crazy. he is in complete control of the film, and since he is in most of the scenes that is a very good thing. He is believable as an action star, and believable as a guy who screws up a lot, but is trying to do the right thing. Of all of the Die Hard clones we have seen, this one is absolutely one of my favorites. Tatum does not have the Bruce Willis quality, but he has his own flavor and it very much works here. The chemistry he has with Jamie Foxx is also excellent. Foxx is not given nearly enough to do here, but as a President who is trying to fix the world, and believes whole heartedly in his cause, Foxx does a great job. He looks Presidential and delivers some very Presidential statements in an honest manner. The dynamic between non-violent President and perpetual screw up trying to save the world is mined for laughs and is also mined for some truly outstanding action scenes. I am not sure I can remember a movie where so many bullets flied left and right.

Roland Emmerich does not make great movies. I do not think he aspires to make great movies. He, like Michael Bay, makes big giant explosion filled set pieces strung together in the most entertaining of ways. One thing he does better than Bay, is nail the comedy. The comedy in his films never feel like filler. it does not detract from the film, it adds to it and this one is no different. The one-liners are solid when they come and like Willis, Tatum can be funny in the worst situation and make it not seem forced. If there is any justice in this big budget blockbuster filled summer, it is that people will go see this movie. If you want awesome action, look no further than a car chase outside of the white house, but still within the grounds. You get a car chase, with Gatling guns, rocket launchers, tanks, grenades and explosions, all while just circling a fountain on the White House property. It is a fun sequence, but also more intense than I was expecting. I think that level of intensity comes from having the man being chased down be the President. There is something a bit harrowing about the visual of our President being fired upon. I know it is not the real President, but I think you understand my point.

White House Down is about as fun a summer movie as you are going to find this summer. There is not much depth to it and it might not look as pretty as some of the other films this summer, but it is tons of fun. I was never bored. I was either laughing or in awe at the awesome action. There is even some great hand to hand combat going on and when you see an SUV drive right into the White House, it is hard to beat that. There is a very goofy moment towards the end, but I'll damned if that goofy moment did not very nearly fill my eyes with ridiculous nonsense tears. Channing Tatum had one of the best years an actor can have back in 2012. Here he opens a big budget action movie and while it has not been financially as successful as it should be, Tatum is well on his way to being an A-lister through and through.

World War Z

The behind the scenes story of this film is fascinating. Filled with drama, death, a bad ending, reshoots and 4 or 5 scren writers, World War Z is the movie of the summer that was sure to be a bomb. It was Brad Pitt's baby though. He fought incredibly hard to get this movie made and through all of the negative press, he just kept on moving. He shrugged off the bad press and he shrugged off rumors that he and director, Marc Forster, did not get along, and he shrugged off the fact that the entire third act was being rewritten. The author of the novel had some not too terribly nice things to say about the switch from slow zombies in the book to fast zombies in the movie. There were complaints about a PG-13 zombie movie because zombie movies are known for gore and a sanitized version of that would not work. After showing Damon Lindelof (must hated screen writer of Prometheus) the third act and asking him to write it, he said that much more than the third act needed help. They reshot the ending, the opening, and a few scenes in between all raising the budget into the $200 million range. Typically movies that go through all of that, fail. The trailers did not really do them much good either. I cannot tell you how many people asked me what was going on in that trailer. Apparently it was not clear that zombies were going on. Everyone assumed failure, but something happened on the day it was released. The movie shocked box office analysts because people were kind of flocking to it and more than that, the word of mouth coming out of the theater was incredible. At my theater people who loved the book hated the movie because of the massive changes, including one solid narrative throughout, but the people who had not read the book were raving like crazy. One guy told me the opening was the most intense opening scene he could remember sitting through. I was not totally sold on it, but I like Pitt and I like big budget action, so I was down.

In a quiet home inside Philadelphia, a family of four is getting ready for the day. Gerry Lane(Pitt) is a stay at home dad who once upon a time had a job that put him in serious danger. We find out quickly that he was a United Nations investigator. We see the news talk about a rabies type break out in humans, and that in another country Martial Law has been established, but we are not given many more facts than that when we are thrust into a seriously intense opening sequence involving Gerry trying to get his family out of Philadelphia after an explosion, a runaway garbage truck and a bunch of human beings biting other human beings and all of them turning into something zombie like. These are running, jumping, crazy people who move in packs and are drawn to sound. Gerry notices it takes them 12 seconds from being bitten to turn. He and his family make it to new Jersey, when Gerry gets a call from his old UN partner about needing his help. The family holes up for a few hours with a very welcoming family, and Gerry tries to convince the dad of that family to bring his family along, but the dad refuses. Gerry and his family run up to the top of the apartment building, trying to avoid death and before they get away, the little boy from the nice family joins them, signaling the rest of his family had been taken. Once safe, Gerry is asked by his former partner, Thierry, to escort a scientist to where they believe the outbreak started because the scientist believes he can find what started it and how to cure it. The scientist tells Gerry that often times Mother Nature leaves clues because she wants to get caught. The scientist does not last long and the rest of the film follows Gerry as he attempts to figure out what caused this outbreak and how it can be defeated.

World War Z is insanely intense, well paced, and features some incredibly excellent action sequences. It knows how to use light and sound to put the audience on the edge of its collective seat and it knows when to turn up the adrenaline to just the right amount to get our hearts pounding until we just need a break and then it lets up on the gas, lets us calm down, just to rev us back up again. It is a seriously enjoyable thrill ride and I cannot believe it was such a troubled production. The opening is crazy, there are three sections in act two that are just some of the best orchestrated action sequences you are going to find in the zombie genre and the third act, while a bit of a letdown, features a really cool sequence of quiet uncalm. Let us begin at the start. The opening scene which leads us into the opening sequence is sublime. We get a nice set up of a happy family, but a little bit of strain when talking about dad's old job. The oldest daughter needs her inhaler, so that will come up again, for sure. Dad quit his job to be closer to his family, which makes the fact that he has to leave them as this all gets crazier even more difficult. Then, BOOM! Almost without warning, a traffic jam turns into this crazy action scene, dizzying camera movements, a thrilling score and then just when you think you cannot handle it, everything slows down as Pitt's character focuses on one man transforming and we hear counting. Then, BOOM! That man gets up and starts ravaging for people to munch on. This uneasy feeling that we have no idea if the movie is going to be fast or slow never really leaves. It is one of the finer points of the film. It slows down and speeds up with such confidence and with such break neck speeds that you are always wondering where it is going to be next. That is one of the pluses to having fast zombies. The next crazy scene is when Gerry and the scientist are being led out of a plane. it is pitch black, with fog, and everything is slow and quiet. We can hear each character breathing heavier and heavier, and suddenly it gets crazy again.

The two sequences that most people are talking about are the scene in Jerusalem (a spectacular scene for a few reasons) and the much teased airplane scene. The airplane scene is probably most people's favorite and for good reason. it is not a lengthy scene, but very rarely do zombie movies take to the sky and the effectiveness of this scene coming right after this amazing sequence in Jerusalem, makes it a doozy. Again, everything starts off quiet, and Gerry is beginning to think he knows what to do to at least help the situation. Then we see the first zombie, then it cuts away to Gerry again and everything is still, calm. We hear rustling, and then slowly the camera pans to the action and we see craziness and hear screaming, but Gerry does his best to contain his section, keeping them quiet as he can until insanity breaks through. In an enclosed space, zombies do their worst damage. There is nowhere to escape, but Gerry has to create space. It is an awesomely effective scene and it pushes things forward on top of it.

However, the entire sequence in Jerusalem takes the cake. First off the action in this sequence is the best in the movie. it is quick, dirty, looks unrehearsed, and is completely exhilarating. However, the scene also deals well in exposition. We have Exposition Man, whose job it is to just give Pitt and us exposition. However, it is done in such a great way that we are visually stimulated and getting all of this information. As Exposition Man talks, he and Pitt are traveling through Jerusalem, which is a completely boarded up area now. It is completely free from zombies because they built a giant wall and happened to complete it before the attack. Why? Well, because when they first heard the word zombie, the 10 leaders got together and 9 agreed it could never be and when all 9 agree, the 10th man has to disagree and he has to start digging for information. It is a wonderful bit of exposition and it is encased in Jewish paranoia from centuries of mistreatment. There is a reason for it that makes sense to the characters and to the story. All around them as this exposition is going on we see happiness, but every so often the camera pans outside the walls to where the zombies are and at this point Pitt has learned that they are attracted to sound and inside the walls, as this is going on, they start singing over a microphone and it is getting louder and louder and louder and soon the zombies are climbing each other to get over the wall and the exposition stops and the zombies come crashing down and chaos ensues. It is one of the best sequences I have seen this summer, if I am being completely honest. Everything that happens in it makes sense for the story and for the characters. it is not in there just to be in there. It is how action sequences in action movies should go.

Pitt does a great job, which is important because he is in 95% of the film. The movie does a good job of cutting back to the family to remind us of the emotional pull at work here. The film does not stick the landing as well as I would have liked, but the climax does have some cool ideas in it. Again, sticking Pitt in an enclosed space with zombies is very effective. Especially with zombies who have been dormant and might move differently than the zombies Pitt had seen early in the movie. World War Z is so effective about building this high level of intensity that I did not even miss the gore of a zombie movie. In fact, this definitely feels much more like an Outbreak kind of movie and less like a zombie movie. The level of panic has real world implications. There are not many answers to be found, which is kind of nice. Is it a viral? The immediate panic of foreign terror is palpable and that is why zombie movies work. They play on our natural fears of the unknown. World War Z surrounds us with that panic, while giving us a hero at the same time. Not only is he a hero, but he is one of the most recognizable movie stars in the entire world. We can place our hopes on him, while still holding onto our panic and the movie allows us our panic and does not completely comfort us. However, one of my favorite things about this film, and one that, I think, sets it apart from most zombie films, is the optimism in humanity. At the beginning, a unknown family shelters our protagonist without questioning it at all. Jerusalem is letting in anyone who can make it there. Zombie movies are filled with cynicism and here goes one that believes in humanity and I have to admit it was refreshing.

Final Grade: A