World War Z - 4K Blu-ray Review

Movie
To round out the Paramount Scares: Volume 2 this week we have another one of those “huh, does this belong in a horror set?” films in the form of World War Z. While the film has nothing to do with the book outside of the borrowing the name, World War Z has always felt much more like an action thriller than a horror movie. I get that it’s about zombies so it automatically goes in horror, but it’s really one of the most least “horror” films in the entire set outside of probably Breakdown (which really does stretch the credulity of calling it a horror film instead of a thriller). But either way, it’s nice to see another old Blu-ray get a nice new 4K UHD release, with a brand new 4K master.

As I mentioned in my 2013 review, zombies were pretty much all the rage back then. They had taken over the field for vampires, with shows like The Walking Dead and are still going on with things like Max’s The Last of Us. But over the years the zombie craze has waned and I definitely remembered watching World War Z 11 years ago and thinking “this wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great”, so I kind of wanted to see how I felt about it after this long. Well, it looks like I was right, as World War Z is just as “middle of the road” as I remembered.

Based off the bestselling novel of the same name (and by based I mean that it bears the name of the book, nothing more), World War Z is a frenetic and action filled zombie movie that literally throws you into the action withing mere minutes of the film starting. The world is suddenly overturned in a matter of days from a weird outbreak that mutates human beings into mindless zombies. Ex United Nations investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is enjoying early retirement with his wife Karin (Mireille enos) and their children, only to get swept up in a frantic bid to escape the city in lieu of the zombie apocalypse. After barely escaping due to his United Nations connections, Gerry is tasked with finding out just where exactly the source of the virus is coming from.

The investigation leads him to South Korea, then suddenly to Jerusalem where he finds out the curious fact that the zombie ignore some people, and kill the rest. Barely escaping with his life once MORE, Gerry figures out the horrifying truth. The zombies are attacking healthy people, but ignoring terminally ill people. The one last chance humanity has is found in a WHO laboratory, where Gerry plans to use the world’s most deadliest viruses to act as a sort of camouflage in hopes of saving the human race. Now all he has to do is traverse the deadly skies with a plane full of zombies, a WHO lab who has more zombies than expected, and suspicious WHO employees who really don’t trust anyone.

Taking the name of a fantastic novel, World War Z tries to form it’s own path, and sort of succeeds, but feels hampered by the fact that this was meant to a be a trilogy, and the entirety of the film is acting as a setup for what is to come rather than telling a self contained story. The play on the 28 Days/Weeks Later rage zombies is pretty cool, but there’s most of the film is simply following Gerry as he hops from one location to the other in order to find the inevitable “cure”. But at the end of the day the film teeters on the edge of being a good movie, while reveling in a bunch of silly “almost had it’s!” until the film ends. It’s fast paced and exciting, which is the major redeeming factor for film fans, as it keeps you watching the screen even though not a lot is happening.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for intense frightening zombie sequences, violence and disturbing images




4K Video: Video:

Checking out the 4K disc I will admit that I’m sort of boggled on how Paramount licenses things. The original Blu-ray had the Unrated cut on Blu-ray, with the theatrical release on the included DVD. Scream Factory’s release of the film was a 3 disc release, with a 2K upscaled 4K disc for the theatrical mix, and 2 Blu-rays with both the theatrical and extended cuts on them. THIS release from Paramount gives a brand new 4K DI master for the theatrical cut on 4K UHD, and then uses the same Unrated Blu-ray to fill out the combo pack. So each release is a weird sort of give and taken. Blu-ray release = Unrated Blu, Theatrical DVD. Scream Factory 4K release = Theatrical 4K (albeit with a 2K master upconverted) and both the Theatrical and Unrated Blu-rays. 4K Paramount release = 4K remastered UHD for the theatrical, Unrated cut relegated to Blu-ray. Kind of a weird bouncing around of editions, but it is what it is (Paramount has always had WEIRD issues with theatrical and unrated cuts appearing on their home video releases. Has something to do with the convoluted rights issues they have going on).

I sadly don’t have the 4K UHD from Scream Factory to compare against, so this 4K disc is going to have to be directly compared against the Paramount Unrated Blu-ray that we’ve had for the last 11 years. I reviewed said Blu-ray back when it came out, and vividly remembered how strange the visuals for the film were. It was bathed in a green pushed teal, with a hazy sort of look for the first portion of the movie, mixed with great detail levels later on. Well, I guess that’s baked into the original film elements, as the 4K UHD sports those same quirks, just with better black levels, and more controlled colors with the Dolby Vision application. I did notice that the film is a good bit sharper than the old Blu-ray, with better details on the zombies (sometimes too much, as the CGI looks is more noticeable) as well as sharper background images in places like the WHO lab, or on the Belarus plane. However, these upgrades are more of a fine tuning, pushing the Blu-ray qualities up a notch, and isn’t going to make it look like a whole different movie. Some scenes showed such similarities that I had to A/B the 4K and Blu-ray disc to notice the difference, but in others it shows a distinctly sharper difference. Especially in regards to black levels which REALLY are helped by the HDR application. All in all, this is not THE best looking 4K UHD disc on the market, but it makes some very nice upgrades to the already solid looking Blu-ray, but still keeps the aesthetic quirks that make World War Z so unique (and without major digital alteration).









Audio:

I remember the Scream Factory 4K getting some flak for downgrading the 7.1 DTS-HD MA track from the Blu-ray to 5.1 DTS-HD MA, but it looks like Paramount is using that same 7.1 DTS-HD MA track for their 4K re-release, so all good on that front. Mirroring my thoughts some 11 years ago, Paramount has done a great job crafting a mix that can soft and subtle, yet blow up in your face with a sonic barrage just like that. The sounds of the city traffic and dialog are very soft and subtle, with great nuance and clarity, but when the zombie get going things blow up BIG TIME. The crash and roar as they shriek and fall all over the place trying to get human flesh is intense, and the bass is literally off the charts. I walked across the room to get a soda while the attack on Jerusalem was going on, and I could feel the air from my twin SVS PB-3000’s literally assaulting my legs as I passed by one. What makes it ever more enjoyable is the pinpoint precision and balance of the mix. The LFE is strong and powerful, but doesn’t overwhelm, while the bullets sound like actual bullets, and not shotgun blasts or howitzer shells going off. Surrounds are off the charts, with discrete and ambient noises as the zombies shuffle everywhere coming from literally every direction in the room. It’s not PERFECT, but boy is this a great mix that has held up very well over the last 11 years.












Extras:

• Origins
• Looking to Science
• WWZ Production














Revisiting after not having seen the film since LITERALLY when I reviewed it back in September of 2013, all of my original thoughts came rushing back. It was definitely a solid film, but was NOTHING like the book it was taken from, and still feel like it was supposed to be the first chapter in a saga rather than tell a cohesive and complete story. The entire film is quite kinetic and sometimes very enjoyable, but it seems like it’s the framework for another movie rather than it’s own thing. Basically modern day Marvel. The 4K UHD set is a solid upgrade over the Blu-ray in terms of video quality, but extras are still simply the ones found on the old Blu-ray set. Only complaint is that once again rights issues have bizarrely made it so that we only get the theatrical in 4K UHD instead of both cuts, but this isn’t anything new as even the Blu-ray release back in the day had issues getting both cuts into 1080p. Still, a solid watch.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz
Directed by: Marc Forster
Written by: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 7.1, French, Spanish, Portuguese DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 123
Blu-Ray Release Date: October 1st, 2024