September 29, 2025 • 41 mins
This podcast episode delves into the cinematic exploration of "World War Z," a film that portrays a former United Nations employee's harrowing quest to halt a zombie pandemic. While I appreciate the film's ambition and unique depiction of fast-moving zombies, I express reservations regarding its narrative coherence and CGI execution. My co-hosts and I engage in a rigorous analysis, highlighting the film's divergence from its literary source, as well as the missed opportunities to explore deeper themes of human nature and societal response to crisis. We grapple with the implications of the film's pacing and character development, ultimately reflecting on the broader fascination with zombie narratives in contemporary culture. Join us as we dissect this film's merits and shortcomings, culminating in our ratings and recommendations for future viewing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I think it's an amazing movie,but I just wanted to piss them off,
so I have to throw it back.
Fair enough.
Alec, what about you, man?
It worked.
Hate this movie.
(00:21):
Welcome to the what's Every podcast.
We fashion ourselves cinematicjudge and jury.
My name is J.J. crowder.
I'm here with my co host Matzenheimer.
Better Red than Dead.
And Alec Burgess.
Let's get it.
We appreciate you tuning in.
Go ahead, hit that.
Follow subscribe like bellnotification buttons.
Tell a friend about us.
Tell a family member about us.
Don't tell anybody involvedwith this movie about us.
Just don't.
(00:44):
There's nobody I want to hangout with from this movie.
Maybe one person.
We'll talk about it in a minute.
Yeah, so we're on week five.
Before we get into thatthough, go check us out on Patreon
at what's over there.
We have a lot of cool there.
You can vote for free.
You can also pay a little bitand vote and watch other extra content
(01:05):
or torture us if you pay adecent chunk of money.
Not that bad though.
But you can really put cancel Netflix.
And there you go.
What's our verdict?
Patreon.
There you go.
You could subscribe to ustwice and still probably not pay
what you're paying on Netflix.
(01:25):
But no, no double dipping inthe making us watch shitty movies.
But anyway, we're back to it.
We're on week five of BradPitt September.
Man, I missed the alliteration.
But yeah.
So we're kicking the week fiveoff, the final week off, with World
War Z.
It was released June 21, 2013.
(01:46):
It was written by MatthewMichael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and
Damon Lindelof.
It was directed by Mark.
Mark Forrester.
It stars Brad Pitt, MurielEnos, Daniela Curtez, James Badge,
Dale Ludy Bokin, Matthew Fox,David Morse, Elias Gable, Peter Capaldi,
(02:09):
Ruth Nega, and then the restof these names I'm not even going
to try to say.
So, yeah, there's a lot ofpeople in this movie that I always
forget are in this movie untilI watch this movie.
It's about a former Unitednations employee, Jerry Lane, who
traverses the world in a raceagainst time to stop a zombie pandemic
that is toppling armies andgovernments and threatens to destroy
humanity itself.
(02:30):
That was a very dramatic synopsis.
But yeah, World War Z. Matson,this was your movie, my friend.
Yeah, I. I picked this onebecause I. I knew that it was.
When we were looking at BradPitt movies, I was like, well, the
only one I really cared aboutwas doing One of the Ocean's movies.
(02:51):
There's a bunch of these otherBrad Pitt movies that I'd never seen
before.
Knew we were going to do wantto do something very different than
those.
When this movie came, I justremember man, we were so fascinated
with zombie stuff for like itwas like a 10 year run.
It's not that we're not thesedays, but there was all kinds of
the Walking Dead to what wasthe one with Will Smith that the
(03:11):
name escapes me.
I am legend.
I am legend.
And there's probably 28 dayslater and all.
All that stuff but all the zombies.
Slow, dumb and not that thesezombies were smart in this one, but
they were fast and it was different.
And this movie stuck out to meas much as Brad Pitt's terrible hair
(03:32):
stuck out to me in this movieas well.
I just, I think it to me thismovie is a.
A fun journey in terms of whatthat era symbolized for like the.
The zombie esque movies.
But it just sticks out to mebecause it was a little bit different
(03:53):
than the others.
And I like Brad Pitt in themovie, but it's certainly not his
best movie.
But it was compelling subjectmatter at the time and I just wanted
to throw it because I thoughtmy co host wouldn't appreciate this
movie for what it is.
It's not like I think it's anamazing movie, but I just wanted
to piss them off so I had tothrow it back.
(04:14):
Fair enough.
Alec, what about you, man?
It worked.
I hate this movie.
And the pro the reason why Ihate it.
Well, there's several but thebiggest one is it almost feels like
because these are based.
This movie is based off of abook series.
It almost feels like theauthor was a bit of a dick and so
(04:36):
they said okay, well we'rejust gonna up your story in many
ways because there's so manyjust weird holes, things that don't
make sense in this movie thatare just like, like the biggest one.
What the did Jerry Lang do forthe UN to where now he's got superhuman
Jason Bourne, Jack Reacher sskills where in a zombie attack the
(05:01):
first thing he does is counthow long it takes someone who got
bit to turn.
No, no.
And that that's like in thefirst 10 minutes this movie.
And there's just so manyegregious things.
So yeah, you Matson.
I hate this movie.
Matson has succeeded.
(05:21):
I don't love this movie butfor very different reasons and yet
on the same line.
So if either of you read the book.
Yeah.
So this book there's there'snothing in this movie that is about
that, that ties to this bookexcept for zombies.
Like, that's it.
Because the book is about.
(05:42):
It's.
It's post world war zombie.
It's a.
The post zombie war in the book.
And it's told throughinterviews that the author is supposed
to base.
He's not like Brad Pitt's character.
He's like a.
He's an author.
He's basically a.
It's a version of himself.
(06:03):
And he's doing interviews withpeople that survived the Zombie War
and getting their opinions andtheir perspectives on the war and
what they went through andthings like that.
And it's one of those thingswhere the book is amazing because
it touches on a lot of humannature and society and like how we
(06:23):
respond to crises and how we.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's.
It's an interestingstorytelling device that this book
utilizes to get through it.
My struggle with this movie isthat unlike the last one where the
movie I think is betterbecause I read the book, this one
is worse because I read thebook because I'm like, I want to
(06:44):
see the stories that we hearin the book.
I want to see those.
I don't even think it's been along time since I read this book.
I don't think any one of thescenes that we get in this movie
comes from the book.
I'm pretty sure this is allmeant to be like a prequel basically,
more or less to the book.
(07:05):
And I think base knowing thatthey had intended to do a trilogy
of these movies, that that'sprobably the intention.
Here's how it started.
And then we'll go into.
In second and third movie, theactual stories and then probably
the wind up of the war beingover and we see these interviews
happening.
But this movie has absolutelynothing to do with the book other
(07:26):
than the world gets crushed byzombies and they go to a war with
zombies.
Right?
So I struggle with it.
I also, I will give it onething is I do love the fast zombies.
That's one thing I did likeabout 28 weeks later.
Like when you get those zombiehordes that are moving faster than
like the Walking Dead, wherelike I could trip and fall and get
(07:46):
my fat ass up off the groundand still not have them catch me.
Like, I'm like, why are weafraid of these zombies?
Like, other than when there'slike a hundred thousand of them,
what do I give a.
If it's two of them?
I could jog backwards and notget caught.
So what do I care?
This movie is very different.
And I love the idea of zombiesthat are like feral and fast and
(08:07):
jump.
I also love the idea whichthey do touch on in the book that
the, the zombification and theactual disease what creates it is
a living organism almost.
And like once it gets into ahuman being, the reason that they're
going after is not to eat, butto spread the virus.
Right?
Like that's what a disease isand what it does.
(08:30):
And I love that concept of thezombie ism, if you will.
And the fact that theyactually talk about it versus like
well, they're just fuckingflesh eating human beings that don't
have a brain.
Get the out of here.
No, like this is.
I love the idea of the, theorganism, the disease within them
is, is forcing them to do itin order to spread it.
(08:51):
And then I love the caveatthat it's like, well, they're not
gonna.
With sick people because it's,it's not going to survive.
Right.
Why would we mess with that?
So I love that concept.
Outside of that, like the CGIis horrid.
Like, oh my gosh.
Favorite parts of this moviethat I wanted to be so good was it
(09:12):
in, in Israel when they'reclimbing that wall, they're climbing
each other to go up that wall.
That's such a sick thought and idea.
And you see it later againduring the war scene where they're
the flamethrower guys on the roof.
Like I love that and the ideaof that, but it looks so terrible.
The CGI was so horrible thatI'm like, it doesn't.
It lost me because I was like,dude, that arm.
(09:36):
That just doesn't it.
I could do better.
Like my favorite is the waveof zombies that just melts into itself.
Yeah, it's fantastic.
It's so bad.
Stupid.
I hate that scene.
Could have been really awesomebecause you can.
That whole like they're goingin Israel and then the moment you
start to hear that cry, likethe, the chanting, you're like, oh
(09:58):
man, don't.
What are you doing?
And you know those big wallsare like, oh my goodness.
You're like terrifying.
But it could have, it couldhave landed a lot better.
For sure.
Yeah.
But I like those, the scene atthe beginning and the scene in Israel
where they, they do like therush of motion, like the people running
by the car, like all that.
And you're like, you feel likeyou're in it and then they kind of
(10:18):
freeze frame a little bit.
I enjoyed that imagery becauseit it, like you said, Jay was just
so different than the otherones where you're just like, okay,
I'll just stand here and youcan take five minutes to get over
to me because you're limping along.
But what is it about zombiesthat have fascinated humanity so
much?
Is it because we, like, weknow what rabies does to animals
(10:43):
and we're like, man, like, ifit's somehow mutated in human beings,
like it could happen to us or something?
Because we're clearlyfascinated by this topic.
I've always just wanted to askyou guys what your thoughts were
on that.
Alec, I'll let you dive in first.
I think we're programmed for it.
(11:03):
Okay, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait.
This is why I wanted you to go first.
The.
Do you mean by that like, likewe are programmed to become zombies
or we're programmed to befascinated by it and who.
The program?
A little bit of both.
Okay.
Okay.
But I think it's the idea,right, that a.
A little bit the romantized,romanticized idea of it, right?
(11:25):
Zombie apocalypse.
I don't have to go to work tomorrow.
Like, I'm gonna die.
But at the same time, youknow, it's.
It's cool because I'm notmissing out on anything, right?
Like, it's, it's.
I'd be that homeless guy inthis movie that's just chilling,
just chilling on the side ofthe road with this, you know, brown
(11:46):
paper bag full of stuff.
But yeah, I think, I thinkwe're conditioned or programmed into
it.
Interesting.
He was the first one.
When you talk about the drunkguy drinking out of the paper bag
at the beginning, he was thefirst one.
I was like, why did they messwith him?
Because he's already dying.
You get it?
I think for me, I think it's.
(12:07):
I'm gonna go a little deeperon this one.
I think it's a religious based thing.
I think that there's a.
There's this notion of theresurrection, right?
And you want to go down that road.
Like if you think about thatand you take the, the mystical nature
of religion, right?
The fact that there areunexplainable pieces of religion
and how.
But then you think aboutresurrection, how the.
(12:27):
Would that work?
You know what I mean?
Like, does this body just likeit's there and then we're back or
do we write?
So I think there's some ofthat that's ingrained in it.
And so people have thisfascination and then on top of that,
I think there's an additionalfascination with living forever and
like, what does that look like?
And I think some people havegot it in their minds that the zombification
(12:49):
of human beings or anything,because it does take place to a certain
extent in nature.
Like, it's hard to ignore thefact that in some level it could
happen to human nature.
Like, that's.
That's why I think, for me, Ienjoy, like, when we talk about zombies,
like, not only the video gameis fun to play, but like the last
of us, that.
That they took something thatexists in nature in real life.
(13:12):
You can see that on a dailybasis of this cordyceps virus taking
over bugs and other smallcreatures and forcing them to do
things like becoming their mind.
Right.
I think that, to me is sointeresting that there's something
in nature that does that.
And the only thing that keepsus from having to happen to us is,
(13:34):
is our natural bodytemperature is too hot for a fungi
to survive right within us.
So it's like, it's one ofthose things, but it's so close,
5 degrees south, and we're right.
Like, it's.
It's one of those interestingconcepts that it's not so far out
of the reach of believabilitythat we then become obsessed with
(13:57):
it because we're like, well,what the.
If this actually happened.
Right.
So I think that's where a lotof that comes from.
Yeah, I'm with you on that.
I think that's.
We have examples in naturethat have shown us, like, well, you
technically couldn't even lookat what, like, what would happen
with COVID and how, likestarts to shut down infrastructure.
And that wasn't.
People weren't attacking each other.
(14:17):
We were just afraid to breatheon each other.
And you just take that andmultiply it by the moment someone
starts to prey on someone else.
Like, oh, yeah, thepandemonium just kicks off and gets
nuts.
And this movie just makes youthink about, like, home preparedness
and food and have guns and allthese things.
(14:38):
But then you see stuff like that.
And I'm always.
I always say this in like,post apocalyptic movies.
I'm like, I ain't cut out forthe survival man.
As long as I'm dining with thepeople that I love and we're all
gone.
And I'm like, I'm not leavingthem on bad terms.
Like, what are we living for here?
Like, it's.
You're gonna have no, like,essentially no electricity.
You're not gonna.
They're gonna.
(14:59):
You're not gonna have.
I'm not playing.
I'm not watching football.
I ain't playing Rocket Leagueor Frost Haven.
I can't watch movies wearinganything with this pot.
None of that.
We're going back to good old19th century, but worse, because
you can't go outside and JJ'snot gonna have AC.
He's gonna be a grumpy.
(15:20):
And you're going to be eating,like, potatoes that you grew out
of your backyard and hope youdon't die when you go out.
Like, I don't.
It just sounds horrible to me.
Like, once you get past allthat, like, it's not glorious.
I. I don't need to be one ofthe people to carry on society at
that point.
Like, look, I believe in the afterlife.
Hope.
Hope it's true.
And let me hold on to that.
Because otherwise I'm like,hell no, man.
(15:42):
Like, let me go.
That's fair.
There are a lot of things Iwould be okay.
Surviving of zombie apocalypseisn't one of them.
There's way too much runningfor me to have to do for me to be
comfortable with surviving inthat world.
I'd be like, the freaking soldier.
I'd be like, well, I got thisone, boys.
(16:03):
I'm out of there.
And that, just so you know, ismy favorite part of this movie, is
like, when he's at that basewith those soldiers.
And those guys are amazing.
Like, I love those guysbecause they just walk in and he's
trying to be thisinvestigator, right?
That he was with the U. ED andthey're like, we got nothing for
you.
This guy was doing dumb.
(16:24):
So he got shot.
Then we burnt the.
Because we didn't want to dealwith it anymore.
Oh, the files were in that room.
They were just a casualty ofthe fire.
Yeah.
Col.
He's there.
Not gonna get much out of him.
His fingers still twitching,but that's about all you got.
Was.
Great.
I love that whole scene.
(16:45):
He's just like, all you gottado is pedal, dude.
Like, what.
What is your problem?
I just.
Those guys were my favoritepart of this movie.
That and the fact that.
That they had Peter Capaldiplaying a who doctor.
Come on.
Come on.
(17:06):
How.
You know he only took that asa joke.
He's like, okay, I'll go do this.
Because I'm.
I'm a who doctor instead ofDoctor who.
I.
Every time I watch this movie,I laugh my ass off the whole time
he's talking.
Because he's literallycredited in this movie too, as who
Doctor.
Like, that's it.
He doesn't have a name.
He's just the WH Doctor.
(17:28):
I Was like, that's beautiful.
Somebody has a wonderful senseof humor to bring him into this movie
in that role.
That's golden.
Yeah, Great stuff.
If you didn't know he playedDoctor who for a very long time.
Good job, jj.
I hear people don't even.
Like somebody's telling me.
(17:48):
They're like, what's Doctor who?
I'm like, oh, God.
Oh, boy.
I was like, howard, we don'ttalk to those people.
Yeah.
So I will say, even though Ido not like this movie, there were
a couple things that I waslike that was like a cool spin almost
to Matson's point.
Or like, they do a good job inmoments, A few moments.
(18:09):
Showing you, like, how seriousthis is that some of the other zombie
movies don't do a good job of.
And so you have the scenewhere they're, you know, ransacking
the grocery store, right?
And Jerry pops the two guysthat are going after his wife.
And then a cop runs in andJerry's all ready for like, you know,
(18:31):
surrender the gun type of a thing.
And cop not even got theblinders on, is going straight in.
And that kind of gets yougoing, like just how quickly everything
is gone to shit and how nobodycares and just it's it.
So there's a few, like reallycool snatches of brilliance in there.
(18:53):
And I like.
The other part that I reallyenjoy is the idea of, you know, hunting
for patient zero.
But there's no like magicalmiracle, you know, solution or even
find it.
It's almost a real progressionof go here, Go here.
Oh, we can't help you.
We can't help you either.
We'll try this so and so.
(19:15):
It's that kind of futile huntof trying to figure out where this
started and not being able toget there.
Yeah, it's very clever, theairplane scene.
Terrifying though.
See?
No, no, I got a problem withthat one.
And it's a similar problem towhat I have at the CDC or who, wherever
(19:38):
they go to like this zombiewho climbed over a wall to get into
Israel and just go for brokefor people is just casually hanging
out in the plane, just waitinguntil they're conveniently almost
to the UK from Israel.
(19:58):
Well, that's not a 45 minute flight.
Yeah, no long ass flight.
It's like 16 hours and thezombies just killed.
No, that's true though.
This is the second time I'veseen it because I remember seeing
them like, how did this happen now?
Like, they are already in theair for a while.
(20:19):
And that's the fair point.
Like, I liked it that I just.
I like how tense it was, butthe origin of it doesn't quite.
How did they make that add up?
Maybe they.
They just completely go, yeah, it's.
That's why it was like.
It's almost like a you to thedirector or the.
The author of the sto.
Of the book.
Because the same thing, likein the.
When they're in the facility, right?
(20:40):
You have this cool kind oflike, you know, sneaky round kind
of scene and then it all goesto hell.
So you have a really coolchase scene, right?
But these zombies who we'veliterally seen like dive bombing
to get after a body of fleshand blood are stopped by a door.
Oh, yeah, they stop it.
Yeah.
(21:01):
Open the door real quick.
They come in, close door real quick.
And then they're just liketapping on the glass like walking
dead zombies until it'sconvenient for them to chase a soda
can.
When they've.
We've seen that they stillkind of like have a brain in the
sense that they have direction.
They've seen people go acrossthe bridge, like, yeah, oh, there's
(21:23):
people there.
If they can run across thegoddamn desert to, you know, pillar
up in a.
In a wall.
And so there's all theselittle things where it's like, that
was stupid because you couldstill have the plot points happen
without needing it.
Like, you could still have areally cool plane scene and not have
(21:43):
to be like, oh, yeah, thiszombie was just, you know, snoozing
for 14 hours that they were in flight.
Well, all they have to do is.
And I think this is theimplication, right?
Like, they show the planegetting ready to take off and it's
driving down the Runway andthere's zombies getting relatively
close.
All you have to do is do anunder the plane shot of a bunch of
zombies getting to the wheelof this plane, right.
They're not big enough orstrong enough that they're going
(22:05):
to fuck up the wheel, but theycould certainly.
The way that they just grab ahold of shit and run onto and stuff.
And they show that a lot inthis movie.
You just show one gettingcaught up in the wheel as it goes
up.
Now that removes the wholescare tag, the jump scare of him
coming out of the elevator, right?
But it puts him in the planeand with enough time, that one, you
(22:26):
can't hear the.
That's going on in the bellycompartment, the luggage compartment,
you can't hear that.
So he could be down therefreaking the out trying to find somebody.
And then they've alreadyexplained if they don't find.
Find something and there's nostimulation and there's enough noise
in the plane, he's not goingto be attracted to what's going on
in the plane up there.
So they go dormant.
And at that point I'm like,okay, now there's still the tricky
(22:48):
part of this dumb shit's gotto end up in the airplane elevator.
Right.
So how does that happen?
There's a lot of coincidencesto it, but you could have solved
the unrealistic piece ofwhere'd this zombie come from?
In this plane by showing abunch getting to the wheel.
You don't even have to show itgetting, like, pulled up with the
landing gear.
Just show them holding on toit and trying to climb up and like,
(23:09):
then cut it back to the planeand you think, oh, they're safe.
They made it.
It went up.
But he's in there.
But I'm with you.
Like, there's.
They didn't take the time tofill some of these weird gaps to.
In order to have a jump scare.
And then a very intense sceneon an airplane.
I have a bigger problem withthe grenade throw in the airplane
that takes out half like aside of the airplane.
(23:32):
But I was like, dude, you're so.
Everything in that plane untilthat was.
The wall of that plane goesout is so compressed, and it's like
that explosion is going to bescientifically twice as big because
of the cabin pressure.
Yeah.
In that plane.
So for it to only blow out achunk of the wall, like they would
(23:56):
have probably.
And I'm.
I don't know enough to knowfor sure, but my guess would be that
it would have blown that planein half.
And there's no land in that,let alone at least not to the point
that anybody survives it,which I also think is a little wild.
Like the way that they.
And good for them.
They showed this thing hittingthe ground and the nose of it fell
(24:17):
off, and I'm just like, oh,all that.
You're like, are they dead?
He survived.
So, yeah, there.
There's some serious random ass.
Well, and then this, you know,this Israeli sh.
Soldier gets her hand cut off.
Like, that knife is thesharpest knife on the planet.
(24:40):
Because listen, I have done some.
Not to human being, but I'vedone cleaning of animals before.
And I have done it with some extremely.
And I mean, you look at thatwrong and it'll cut your eyeball.
Okay.
Sharp knife, you can't cutthrough bone in a swing.
(25:01):
You just can't.
And part of that comes from weget this unrealistic nature of like
chopping someone's head offwith a sword in medieval times because
we see it in movies.
Wrong.
They've.
That got embedded.
And it's funny because the onething that they did get really right
was when he whales the one guywith the goddamn crowbar and then
he can't get it out of his head.
(25:22):
I'm like, that's realistic.
You slam something like aknife, it would have got to her bone.
And I don't care how sharpthat was.
It would have probably gottenpartially through it and got stuck.
It wouldn't have cut it off.
Like, he was using a laserbeam that just like in 1F.
Seriously, you'd have to swingthat some so hard and it would have
(25:46):
to be the sharp.
And he just went and it was done.
I was like, nope, not even ifshe was sitting on an a.
Like some hard surface on the ground.
And that's the other part thatshe does.
He does it out of midair.
All that's going to do isknock her hand down, which means
you lose all the leverage tofinish that cut.
Like, that was a magical knife.
(26:08):
Like.
Yeah.
Now you think about it,Hollywood just does that in so many
corners.
Oh, explosions, all kinds of things.
And that this movie has a lotof those things.
I think you just have to,like, get sucked in and look past
some of that.
But that's also the problemwith doing what we do is.
Yeah.
(26:28):
You get so hyper focused on selling.
Because almost every moviethat has action related to this,
I mean, and it ain't trueunless it's like a John Wick style
where they're like trying tobe as true to form as possible.
But even that's fake is you'relike, you know what?
Someone's probably shootinghim and he would have died 30 minutes
ago.
Well, there's no such thing asa bulletproof suit.
(26:49):
Sorry.
Yeah, even Kevlar hurts.
Like, let's just.
Let's be real.
And he gets shot point blank.
So he's.
Anyway, we digress.
But like, yeah, I mean, it's.
You're not wrong.
Like, realism in.
In Hollywood is especiallylike a zombie movie.
Come on.
Like.
But there are some placeswhere I'm like, wait, what?
(27:11):
Like, every time I watch thatscene happen, I'm like, hang on.
You can't cut her hand off.
Like, he's going through a hot.
Like it has a hot knifethrough butter.
And then in the next scene,you can't get the crowbar out of
the dude's head.
Like, you can't have it both ways.
It's either you have magical weapons.
But why did movies let thathappen, though?
Because they have people that,like, they make movies, they know
this.
They're just.
(27:31):
Like, the audience is dumb,or, like, it just looks cool and
people aren't going to careenough because that stuff happens.
Yeah.
All the time.
There's those discrepanciesin, like, almost every movie you
see.
And there's some movies that'sso bad, you're like, why did the
director not change that?
But it happens so much.
(27:52):
It's a.
It's a.
An entertainment thing.
I. I think it's like, well,how do we make this a shock and awe
type scene?
Right?
Like, he's got 12 seconds.
You gotta have the hand cutoff quick.
And so we got to cut it off ina mere two seconds.
Right?
So.
And even then, if you thinklogically, like, if he's got 12 seconds,
he probably has less than fiveto get the hand cut off before he
(28:16):
gets into the bloodstreamenough to infect her.
So it's like, I don't know.
That's the only thing I thinkof is it's always for the entertainment
or the shock and awe of it,or, like the.
Oh, God, what just happened.
But when you stop and thinkabout it, I'm like, that's.
Makes me think of that.
That when the rock movie, it'scalled, like, the Tower or whatever,
where he.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
(28:37):
Like, there's so many videosof, like, the physics of, like, how
far he jumped and where hewould, like, what actually would
have happened.
It was so, like, justcomically like, no.
Like, I'm sorry.
Like, never would even.
Even for, like, the average fan.
It was like, no.
Like, no.
Yeah.
But again, then they just lookat the, like, directors, like, don't.
(28:59):
Superhuman.
Like, dude, I don't know.
Movies that are more inrealism would.
Be nice because he's got a freaking.
What's the word?
I can't.
He's got a fake leg.
Yeah.
He's not even.
Like.
He's like.
And look, I.
People with prosthetics can dosome really amazing, but jumping's
(29:24):
not really one of them.
Not off of a helicopter, anyway.
Anyway.
So it's just one of thosethings where I was.
Yeah, I'm with you.
Like, sometimes they have tomake choices to make it look cool.
But I have a heart.
And I've always.
Even before the podcast, I'mlike, wait, that's not okay.
It looked kind of cool, but Ijust wish she Would have grabbed
her arm, slammed it on therailing right there and then started
(29:46):
cutting and make it two orthree chops and she's miserable.
But, like, one clean rightthrough the bone.
Not gonna happen.
Anyway, I am just gettingcaught up in the details of this
silly.
But I.
This movie, I'm with Alec.
I think there's moments inthis movie where I'm like, this is
cool.
And then there's like.
I'm like, what the am Iwatching right now?
(30:07):
Like, it's just weird.
And then at the end, like,when they're at the who, there's
some serious intense momentsin that when they're running through.
And then there's.
And then the, like, the apexof this whole thing is him sitting
in that freezer afterinjecting himself, like, waiting.
(30:28):
And then all of a sudden I'mlike, okay, I'm kind of bored now.
Like, there's no.
And then we go straight fromthat into this dialogue, this voiceover
of, like, here comes the war.
And I'm like, I don't give aabout your war anymore.
Like, now I'm like, soanticlimactic of this final scene
that I'm just like, Jesus.
(30:50):
Stupid.
I would rather have been like,this super intense chase to get them
out, and they're freaking theout in this room, and they're like,
we got to make sure this works.
And then they all inject themselves.
And then, like, the zombiesbreak through, and then they recognize
that it worked, right?
So then they can go throughand kill these zombies and then do
the work of, you know,creating this whatever disease or
(31:14):
formulated modified diseasethat makes them invisible.
But, like, I just would.
I wanted a bigger climax ofthe film than him giving himself
a shot of some unknown,incurable or, like, curable deadly
disease that then he justwalks out.
Like, just could have done itbetter anyway, that's my opinion.
(31:40):
Should we rate it?
Kick it off, Madsen.
I'm gonna give this movie.
I'm gonna give it a three.
I think there's.
For the time period it cameout in terms of zombie movies and
what it represented, I thinkit was revolutionary making fast
(32:00):
zombies.
And I think Brad Pitt'scharacter does a good job moving
us through the storyline.
But as we talked about,there's definitely some holes in
the narrative.
And this CGI is bad.
And in a movie like this,like, it needs to be good because
it's a part of the.
The shock and awe of it all.
(32:20):
But I think there's some great scenes.
Like, I'll always remember thescene of that child that crouches
down like basically on thefloor while the zombies are running
past it.
And as JJ talked about, theconcept of how this virus spreads
and what it's doing is really interesting.
It's different than all the others.
And I think there's somecertainly tense moments in this movie
(32:41):
and I think part of it kind ofat the end presents like a video
game.
Like you're kind of playingthe last of us.
You got to sneak around andmake it happen.
But as Jay just talked about,I don't think the payoff at the end
is exactly what we were hoping for.
And it's maybe because theywere originally thinking they were
going to do like a second anda third and that might be part of
the problem.
And then it never got fasttracked again.
(33:03):
And maybe that was part of itbecause I would like to think they
would have had a better climaxat the end if they'd known.
Hey, we don't know if we'regonna get another one so let's make
sure it's good.
But it's a three.
Will I ever watch this one again?
I've seen it twice now.
Probably not.
Probably not.
(33:25):
And I'm okay with that.
But I think it was enjoyedseeing in theaters.
It was, it was fun to watch itagain but eh, it'll just fade into
the ether.
Yeah, I'm gonna give it a two.
I want to give it better, butthen I also want to give it lower.
(33:46):
It's one of those movies whereit's like what I really hate, I really
hate.
But what I really like isreally, really good.
And I, I do like the conceptof the zombie ism and how it works
and I like the idea.
I've always enjoyed like alittle more threatening level zombie
than like the barely walkingtype zombie even unless you have
(34:07):
a bunch of them, you're nevergoing to get overwhelmed in that
situation.
I will say.
I don't know, like I'm.
Yeah, I'm with you.
I think I wanted a betterpayoff at the end.
I want a better cgi.
I want to like it too becausethe book is so good.
But I think the book, if theydid what the book talks about, it
would have turned into a moviethat Matson would have despised because
(34:28):
it would have been very slowand very character driven.
Because it's about thepolitics of the zombie war, like
human nature and how peoplebecome shitty in the.
And we see a little bit aboutof that in the like what Alec talked
about with the cop and likethe, the city when it all starts
to go to hell.
And even in, like, Israel,like, we see the other side of it
(34:51):
where this, you know, what istypically looked upon as a nation
that is very.
They're going to close theirborders and shut everything down,
and they're letting people in,in the midst of a very dangerous
time to let unknown quantitiesof human beings into your city.
But they're doing that.
And he says that moment wherehe's like, hey, anybody we can save
(35:11):
is.
Is great, you know, so it'slike they do have some of those political
pieces or those human naturepieces from the book that they talk
about in the book.
But there's so much good inthe book about how nasty we humans
can be in the.
In the wake of.
Of tragedy and this shitty things.
And also on the flip side,like, how amazing and wonderful human
(35:33):
beings can be in the samecircumstance, right?
Depending on your point ofview and how you handle things and
then the situation that you're in.
So I wanted to see a littlebit more of that.
And again, to your point,maybe it would have come in movie
two and three, but they justdidn't do a good enough job on this
one for it to warrant two andthree is what I'm assuming.
But yeah.
So two for me, I. I don't know.
(35:54):
Like I said, it's one of those things.
There's no in between inanything in this movie.
I either hate it or I'm like,that was dope.
So it probably gets a littlehigher than my brain wants me to
give it, but that's where I'm at.
Alec, poo poo it, my friend.
There you go.
I will say, so.
I struggle with this onebecause you can do kind of when it
(36:19):
comes to movies, in my opinion.
You can do whatever you wantand you can break off a source material,
but it's got to be cool if you do.
Yeah.
And this movie isn't as coolas it could be.
Like, I go think about the.
The kind of.
The big moment, right, thatclimax where you're in the CDC and
sneaking around.
And then in comparison tolike, I Am Legend, where he's in
the bank and he's got theCOVID the flashlight going up and
(36:42):
down.
Like that's at the beginningof the movie, right?
That's what's setting you up.
And to just compare, like,those two moments.
Like, well, one of them isreally cool.
The other one, when in.
When you compare, it's like,ah, man, like, you could have been
really good, but it's almostlike you got lazy or you were relying
(37:03):
on possibly a second and thirdone to really ramp it up, and so
it falls flat.
And then I also have a realproblem with the timing of this,
because another thing I reallyenjoy is this concept that he learns
in Israel about the 10th man.
Right.
Who's his only job is if nineother people.
That's a really cool concept.
(37:23):
And then it spills into thisfact that, oh, yeah, we started building
this giant fucking wall, bythe way, when we heard about zombies
in India.
But then I'm like, okay, well,what's the timeline of this thing?
Because there's a lot ofpeople in India, right.
If.
If outbreak happens there.
I mean, you.
(37:44):
Yeah, it's day.
You got a day.
And it's.
Yeah.
You know, snowballed enough toget out of control, and still, you
know, Israel had enough timeto build a giant wall around Jerusalem
and finish it just in timebefore this happens.
And so you have this kind of.
It's hard for me to nail downthe timing of what's going on or
(38:05):
anything like that, because itjust doesn't seem to make sense.
Or it's like, how did youprepare for this?
If your first clue that it washappening is already that it happened
and now you're fighting theclock or all these little things.
So it's like.
Or, you know, this communiqueout of this base in South Korea is
like.
(38:25):
You know, it makes you think,like, oh, we got this a day and a
half ago.
Yeah.
Right.
Or two days ago.
But in this entire time, youknow, the whole world's lost or whatever.
So it's.
It's hard for me to follow.
And the moments where youcould have made it really cool, instead
you had stupid CGI waves ofzombies that just crash into each
(38:47):
other like water and not flesh.
So it's like, oh, that's a. Imean, I. I watch this movie pretty
frequently, actually.
Now I think about it like I'veseen it a good half dozen times,
but it's.
It's a background noise movie.
Yeah.
And it's usually someone elsehas put it on, and so I can look
up real quick.
(39:08):
Yeah, that's funny.
The guy shot himself.
The doctor shot himself.
He's gonna fix the virus.
That's funny.
And then, you know, go back todoing whatever I was doing.
And so it's a one for me.
I don't like this movie at all.
Fair enough.
Certainly not the best pick ofBrad Pitt.
No.
Well played, Matson.
Definitely well played.
(39:28):
I like that hairdo for him, too.
Yeah.
Yeah, he didn't have a wholelot of wins in this.
No.
Yeah.
No.
Yeah.
Not good.
All right, well, there it is, man.
That's the end of Brad Pitt month.
We're moving on to John Cusackmonth next month.
But before we do that, Alec,tell everybody where we can find
them.
Where they can find us.
Wow.
Well, we can find you guyswherever you are.
(39:51):
No, you guys can find us on YouTube.
That's the best place to findour smiling faces or frowny faces
or pissed off faces when wehave to watch stupid movies.
Other than that, find us onPatreon at What's our verdict?
Reviews.
Patreon.
We put up categories everymonth for different movies that we
want to do.
Sometimes based around actors,theme, genre, or, you know, just,
(40:15):
you know, fuck with Matson month.
That's one that I want to comeback and circle back to and so you
can get involved there, voteon a topic, and then we select some
movies that correlate to thattopic and you guys can vote again
on which ones that we watchfor the month.
This means a lot to us andbragging rights are always on the
table.
So, you know, go, vote, pickmy movies, don't pick anybody else.
(40:38):
I've had a couple stinker months.
And then Behind a good ADBpaywall, there is over 600 extra
videos that range anywherefrom bloops to outtakes to random
conversations, all the way upto full length episodes of movies
that nobody should ever watch.
Speaking of that, shout out toour current patrons, Rick and Charles.
(41:03):
Appreciate you all.
So join us.
What's our favorite Patreon?
Extra content, a little bit of paywall.
But voting is absolutely free,so you can go join there.
Select the movies that we doand talk about and are forced to
watch.
And with that, I will kick itback to the Titan of Terror, the
Saltine of Swat.
A jj.
(41:23):
Yes, sir.
Thanks, Alec.
Yeah, go check us out.
You have a good time?
I swear, maybe most of thetime we're pretty funny.
A lot of times only when we'renot trying to be.
I think, though, we're hilarious.
That's right.
All right, well, there it is.
We appreciate you tuning inand we'll catch you on the next one.
Hasta la vista, baby.
Cinematic.
I think it's an amazing movie,but I just wanted to piss them off,
so I have to throw it back.
Fair enough.
Alec, what about you, man?
It worked.
Hate this movie.
(00:21):
Welcome to the what's Every podcast.
We fashion ourselves cinematicjudge and jury.
My name is J.J. crowder.
I'm here with my co host Matzenheimer.
Better Red than Dead.
And Alec Burgess.
Let's get it.
We appreciate you tuning in.
Go ahead, hit that.
Follow subscribe like bellnotification buttons.
Tell a friend about us.
Tell a family member about us.
Don't tell anybody involvedwith this movie about us.
Just don't.
(00:44):
There's nobody I want to hangout with from this movie.
Maybe one person.
We'll talk about it in a minute.
Yeah, so we're on week five.
Before we get into thatthough, go check us out on Patreon
at what's over there.
We have a lot of cool there.
You can vote for free.
You can also pay a little bitand vote and watch other extra content
(01:05):
or torture us if you pay adecent chunk of money.
Not that bad though.
But you can really put cancel Netflix.
And there you go.
What's our verdict?
Patreon.
There you go.
You could subscribe to ustwice and still probably not pay
what you're paying on Netflix.
(01:25):
But no, no double dipping inthe making us watch shitty movies.
But anyway, we're back to it.
We're on week five of BradPitt September.
Man, I missed the alliteration.
But yeah.
So we're kicking the week fiveoff, the final week off, with World
War Z.
It was released June 21, 2013.
(01:46):
It was written by MatthewMichael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and
Damon Lindelof.
It was directed by Mark.
Mark Forrester.
It stars Brad Pitt, MurielEnos, Daniela Curtez, James Badge,
Dale Ludy Bokin, Matthew Fox,David Morse, Elias Gable, Peter Capaldi,
(02:09):
Ruth Nega, and then the restof these names I'm not even going
to try to say.
So, yeah, there's a lot ofpeople in this movie that I always
forget are in this movie untilI watch this movie.
It's about a former Unitednations employee, Jerry Lane, who
traverses the world in a raceagainst time to stop a zombie pandemic
that is toppling armies andgovernments and threatens to destroy
humanity itself.
(02:30):
That was a very dramatic synopsis.
But yeah, World War Z. Matson,this was your movie, my friend.
Yeah, I. I picked this onebecause I. I knew that it was.
When we were looking at BradPitt movies, I was like, well, the
only one I really cared aboutwas doing One of the Ocean's movies.
(02:51):
There's a bunch of these otherBrad Pitt movies that I'd never seen
before.
Knew we were going to do wantto do something very different than
those.
When this movie came, I justremember man, we were so fascinated
with zombie stuff for like itwas like a 10 year run.
It's not that we're not thesedays, but there was all kinds of
the Walking Dead to what wasthe one with Will Smith that the
(03:11):
name escapes me.
I am legend.
I am legend.
And there's probably 28 dayslater and all.
All that stuff but all the zombies.
Slow, dumb and not that thesezombies were smart in this one, but
they were fast and it was different.
And this movie stuck out to meas much as Brad Pitt's terrible hair
(03:32):
stuck out to me in this movieas well.
I just, I think it to me thismovie is a.
A fun journey in terms of whatthat era symbolized for like the.
The zombie esque movies.
But it just sticks out to mebecause it was a little bit different
(03:53):
than the others.
And I like Brad Pitt in themovie, but it's certainly not his
best movie.
But it was compelling subjectmatter at the time and I just wanted
to throw it because I thoughtmy co host wouldn't appreciate this
movie for what it is.
It's not like I think it's anamazing movie, but I just wanted
to piss them off so I had tothrow it back.
(04:14):
Fair enough.
Alec, what about you, man?
It worked.
I hate this movie.
And the pro the reason why Ihate it.
Well, there's several but thebiggest one is it almost feels like
because these are based.
This movie is based off of abook series.
It almost feels like theauthor was a bit of a dick and so
(04:36):
they said okay, well we'rejust gonna up your story in many
ways because there's so manyjust weird holes, things that don't
make sense in this movie thatare just like, like the biggest one.
What the did Jerry Lang do forthe UN to where now he's got superhuman
Jason Bourne, Jack Reacher sskills where in a zombie attack the
(05:01):
first thing he does is counthow long it takes someone who got
bit to turn.
No, no.
And that that's like in thefirst 10 minutes this movie.
And there's just so manyegregious things.
So yeah, you Matson.
I hate this movie.
Matson has succeeded.
(05:21):
I don't love this movie butfor very different reasons and yet
on the same line.
So if either of you read the book.
Yeah.
So this book there's there'snothing in this movie that is about
that, that ties to this bookexcept for zombies.
Like, that's it.
Because the book is about.
(05:42):
It's.
It's post world war zombie.
It's a.
The post zombie war in the book.
And it's told throughinterviews that the author is supposed
to base.
He's not like Brad Pitt's character.
He's like a.
He's an author.
He's basically a.
It's a version of himself.
(06:03):
And he's doing interviews withpeople that survived the Zombie War
and getting their opinions andtheir perspectives on the war and
what they went through andthings like that.
And it's one of those thingswhere the book is amazing because
it touches on a lot of humannature and society and like how we
(06:23):
respond to crises and how we.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's.
It's an interestingstorytelling device that this book
utilizes to get through it.
My struggle with this movie isthat unlike the last one where the
movie I think is betterbecause I read the book, this one
is worse because I read thebook because I'm like, I want to
(06:44):
see the stories that we hearin the book.
I want to see those.
I don't even think it's been along time since I read this book.
I don't think any one of thescenes that we get in this movie
comes from the book.
I'm pretty sure this is allmeant to be like a prequel basically,
more or less to the book.
(07:05):
And I think base knowing thatthey had intended to do a trilogy
of these movies, that that'sprobably the intention.
Here's how it started.
And then we'll go into.
In second and third movie, theactual stories and then probably
the wind up of the war beingover and we see these interviews
happening.
But this movie has absolutelynothing to do with the book other
(07:26):
than the world gets crushed byzombies and they go to a war with
zombies.
Right?
So I struggle with it.
I also, I will give it onething is I do love the fast zombies.
That's one thing I did likeabout 28 weeks later.
Like when you get those zombiehordes that are moving faster than
like the Walking Dead, wherelike I could trip and fall and get
(07:46):
my fat ass up off the groundand still not have them catch me.
Like, I'm like, why are weafraid of these zombies?
Like, other than when there'slike a hundred thousand of them,
what do I give a.
If it's two of them?
I could jog backwards and notget caught.
So what do I care?
This movie is very different.
And I love the idea of zombiesthat are like feral and fast and
(08:07):
jump.
I also love the idea whichthey do touch on in the book that
the, the zombification and theactual disease what creates it is
a living organism almost.
And like once it gets into ahuman being, the reason that they're
going after is not to eat, butto spread the virus.
Right?
Like that's what a disease isand what it does.
(08:30):
And I love that concept of thezombie ism, if you will.
And the fact that theyactually talk about it versus like
well, they're just fuckingflesh eating human beings that don't
have a brain.
Get the out of here.
No, like this is.
I love the idea of the, theorganism, the disease within them
is, is forcing them to do itin order to spread it.
(08:51):
And then I love the caveatthat it's like, well, they're not
gonna.
With sick people because it's,it's not going to survive.
Right.
Why would we mess with that?
So I love that concept.
Outside of that, like the CGIis horrid.
Like, oh my gosh.
Favorite parts of this moviethat I wanted to be so good was it
(09:12):
in, in Israel when they'reclimbing that wall, they're climbing
each other to go up that wall.
That's such a sick thought and idea.
And you see it later againduring the war scene where they're
the flamethrower guys on the roof.
Like I love that and the ideaof that, but it looks so terrible.
The CGI was so horrible thatI'm like, it doesn't.
It lost me because I was like,dude, that arm.
(09:36):
That just doesn't it.
I could do better.
Like my favorite is the waveof zombies that just melts into itself.
Yeah, it's fantastic.
It's so bad.
Stupid.
I hate that scene.
Could have been really awesomebecause you can.
That whole like they're goingin Israel and then the moment you
start to hear that cry, likethe, the chanting, you're like, oh
(09:58):
man, don't.
What are you doing?
And you know those big wallsare like, oh my goodness.
You're like terrifying.
But it could have, it couldhave landed a lot better.
For sure.
Yeah.
But I like those, the scene atthe beginning and the scene in Israel
where they, they do like therush of motion, like the people running
by the car, like all that.
And you're like, you feel likeyou're in it and then they kind of
(10:18):
freeze frame a little bit.
I enjoyed that imagery becauseit it, like you said, Jay was just
so different than the otherones where you're just like, okay,
I'll just stand here and youcan take five minutes to get over
to me because you're limping along.
But what is it about zombiesthat have fascinated humanity so
much?
Is it because we, like, weknow what rabies does to animals
(10:43):
and we're like, man, like, ifit's somehow mutated in human beings,
like it could happen to us or something?
Because we're clearlyfascinated by this topic.
I've always just wanted to askyou guys what your thoughts were
on that.
Alec, I'll let you dive in first.
I think we're programmed for it.
(11:03):
Okay, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait.
This is why I wanted you to go first.
The.
Do you mean by that like, likewe are programmed to become zombies
or we're programmed to befascinated by it and who.
The program?
A little bit of both.
Okay.
Okay.
But I think it's the idea,right, that a.
A little bit the romantized,romanticized idea of it, right?
(11:25):
Zombie apocalypse.
I don't have to go to work tomorrow.
Like, I'm gonna die.
But at the same time, youknow, it's.
It's cool because I'm notmissing out on anything, right?
Like, it's, it's.
I'd be that homeless guy inthis movie that's just chilling,
just chilling on the side ofthe road with this, you know, brown
(11:46):
paper bag full of stuff.
But yeah, I think, I thinkwe're conditioned or programmed into
it.
Interesting.
He was the first one.
When you talk about the drunkguy drinking out of the paper bag
at the beginning, he was thefirst one.
I was like, why did they messwith him?
Because he's already dying.
You get it?
I think for me, I think it's.
(12:07):
I'm gonna go a little deeperon this one.
I think it's a religious based thing.
I think that there's a.
There's this notion of theresurrection, right?
And you want to go down that road.
Like if you think about thatand you take the, the mystical nature
of religion, right?
The fact that there areunexplainable pieces of religion
and how.
But then you think aboutresurrection, how the.
(12:27):
Would that work?
You know what I mean?
Like, does this body just likeit's there and then we're back or
do we write?
So I think there's some ofthat that's ingrained in it.
And so people have thisfascination and then on top of that,
I think there's an additionalfascination with living forever and
like, what does that look like?
And I think some people havegot it in their minds that the zombification
(12:49):
of human beings or anything,because it does take place to a certain
extent in nature.
Like, it's hard to ignore thefact that in some level it could
happen to human nature.
Like, that's.
That's why I think, for me, Ienjoy, like, when we talk about zombies,
like, not only the video gameis fun to play, but like the last
of us, that.
That they took something thatexists in nature in real life.
(13:12):
You can see that on a dailybasis of this cordyceps virus taking
over bugs and other smallcreatures and forcing them to do
things like becoming their mind.
Right.
I think that, to me is sointeresting that there's something
in nature that does that.
And the only thing that keepsus from having to happen to us is,
(13:34):
is our natural bodytemperature is too hot for a fungi
to survive right within us.
So it's like, it's one ofthose things, but it's so close,
5 degrees south, and we're right.
Like, it's.
It's one of those interestingconcepts that it's not so far out
of the reach of believabilitythat we then become obsessed with
(13:57):
it because we're like, well,what the.
If this actually happened.
Right.
So I think that's where a lotof that comes from.
Yeah, I'm with you on that.
I think that's.
We have examples in naturethat have shown us, like, well, you
technically couldn't even lookat what, like, what would happen
with COVID and how, likestarts to shut down infrastructure.
And that wasn't.
People weren't attacking each other.
(14:17):
We were just afraid to breatheon each other.
And you just take that andmultiply it by the moment someone
starts to prey on someone else.
Like, oh, yeah, thepandemonium just kicks off and gets
nuts.
And this movie just makes youthink about, like, home preparedness
and food and have guns and allthese things.
(14:38):
But then you see stuff like that.
And I'm always.
I always say this in like,post apocalyptic movies.
I'm like, I ain't cut out forthe survival man.
As long as I'm dining with thepeople that I love and we're all
gone.
And I'm like, I'm not leavingthem on bad terms.
Like, what are we living for here?
Like, it's.
You're gonna have no, like,essentially no electricity.
You're not gonna.
They're gonna.
(14:59):
You're not gonna have.
I'm not playing.
I'm not watching football.
I ain't playing Rocket Leagueor Frost Haven.
I can't watch movies wearinganything with this pot.
None of that.
We're going back to good old19th century, but worse, because
you can't go outside and JJ'snot gonna have AC.
He's gonna be a grumpy.
(15:20):
And you're going to be eating,like, potatoes that you grew out
of your backyard and hope youdon't die when you go out.
Like, I don't.
It just sounds horrible to me.
Like, once you get past allthat, like, it's not glorious.
I. I don't need to be one ofthe people to carry on society at
that point.
Like, look, I believe in the afterlife.
Hope.
Hope it's true.
And let me hold on to that.
Because otherwise I'm like,hell no, man.
(15:42):
Like, let me go.
That's fair.
There are a lot of things Iwould be okay.
Surviving of zombie apocalypseisn't one of them.
There's way too much runningfor me to have to do for me to be
comfortable with surviving inthat world.
I'd be like, the freaking soldier.
I'd be like, well, I got thisone, boys.
(16:03):
I'm out of there.
And that, just so you know, ismy favorite part of this movie, is
like, when he's at that basewith those soldiers.
And those guys are amazing.
Like, I love those guysbecause they just walk in and he's
trying to be thisinvestigator, right?
That he was with the U. ED andthey're like, we got nothing for
you.
This guy was doing dumb.
(16:24):
So he got shot.
Then we burnt the.
Because we didn't want to dealwith it anymore.
Oh, the files were in that room.
They were just a casualty ofthe fire.
Yeah.
Col.
He's there.
Not gonna get much out of him.
His fingers still twitching,but that's about all you got.
Was.
Great.
I love that whole scene.
(16:45):
He's just like, all you gottado is pedal, dude.
Like, what.
What is your problem?
I just.
Those guys were my favoritepart of this movie.
That and the fact that.
That they had Peter Capaldiplaying a who doctor.
Come on.
Come on.
(17:06):
How.
You know he only took that asa joke.
He's like, okay, I'll go do this.
Because I'm.
I'm a who doctor instead ofDoctor who.
I.
Every time I watch this movie,I laugh my ass off the whole time
he's talking.
Because he's literallycredited in this movie too, as who
Doctor.
Like, that's it.
He doesn't have a name.
He's just the WH Doctor.
(17:28):
I Was like, that's beautiful.
Somebody has a wonderful senseof humor to bring him into this movie
in that role.
That's golden.
Yeah, Great stuff.
If you didn't know he playedDoctor who for a very long time.
Good job, jj.
I hear people don't even.
Like somebody's telling me.
(17:48):
They're like, what's Doctor who?
I'm like, oh, God.
Oh, boy.
I was like, howard, we don'ttalk to those people.
Yeah.
So I will say, even though Ido not like this movie, there were
a couple things that I waslike that was like a cool spin almost
to Matson's point.
Or like, they do a good job inmoments, A few moments.
(18:09):
Showing you, like, how seriousthis is that some of the other zombie
movies don't do a good job of.
And so you have the scenewhere they're, you know, ransacking
the grocery store, right?
And Jerry pops the two guysthat are going after his wife.
And then a cop runs in andJerry's all ready for like, you know,
(18:31):
surrender the gun type of a thing.
And cop not even got theblinders on, is going straight in.
And that kind of gets yougoing, like just how quickly everything
is gone to shit and how nobodycares and just it's it.
So there's a few, like reallycool snatches of brilliance in there.
(18:53):
And I like.
The other part that I reallyenjoy is the idea of, you know, hunting
for patient zero.
But there's no like magicalmiracle, you know, solution or even
find it.
It's almost a real progressionof go here, Go here.
Oh, we can't help you.
We can't help you either.
We'll try this so and so.
(19:15):
It's that kind of futile huntof trying to figure out where this
started and not being able toget there.
Yeah, it's very clever, theairplane scene.
Terrifying though.
See?
No, no, I got a problem withthat one.
And it's a similar problem towhat I have at the CDC or who, wherever
(19:38):
they go to like this zombiewho climbed over a wall to get into
Israel and just go for brokefor people is just casually hanging
out in the plane, just waitinguntil they're conveniently almost
to the UK from Israel.
(19:58):
Well, that's not a 45 minute flight.
Yeah, no long ass flight.
It's like 16 hours and thezombies just killed.
No, that's true though.
This is the second time I'veseen it because I remember seeing
them like, how did this happen now?
Like, they are already in theair for a while.
(20:19):
And that's the fair point.
Like, I liked it that I just.
I like how tense it was, butthe origin of it doesn't quite.
How did they make that add up?
Maybe they.
They just completely go, yeah, it's.
That's why it was like.
It's almost like a you to thedirector or the.
The author of the sto.
Of the book.
Because the same thing, likein the.
When they're in the facility, right?
(20:40):
You have this cool kind oflike, you know, sneaky round kind
of scene and then it all goesto hell.
So you have a really coolchase scene, right?
But these zombies who we'veliterally seen like dive bombing
to get after a body of fleshand blood are stopped by a door.
Oh, yeah, they stop it.
Yeah.
(21:01):
Open the door real quick.
They come in, close door real quick.
And then they're just liketapping on the glass like walking
dead zombies until it'sconvenient for them to chase a soda
can.
When they've.
We've seen that they stillkind of like have a brain in the
sense that they have direction.
They've seen people go acrossthe bridge, like, yeah, oh, there's
(21:23):
people there.
If they can run across thegoddamn desert to, you know, pillar
up in a.
In a wall.
And so there's all theselittle things where it's like, that
was stupid because you couldstill have the plot points happen
without needing it.
Like, you could still have areally cool plane scene and not have
(21:43):
to be like, oh, yeah, thiszombie was just, you know, snoozing
for 14 hours that they were in flight.
Well, all they have to do is.
And I think this is theimplication, right?
Like, they show the planegetting ready to take off and it's
driving down the Runway andthere's zombies getting relatively
close.
All you have to do is do anunder the plane shot of a bunch of
zombies getting to the wheelof this plane, right.
They're not big enough orstrong enough that they're going
(22:05):
to fuck up the wheel, but theycould certainly.
The way that they just grab ahold of shit and run onto and stuff.
And they show that a lot inthis movie.
You just show one gettingcaught up in the wheel as it goes
up.
Now that removes the wholescare tag, the jump scare of him
coming out of the elevator, right?
But it puts him in the planeand with enough time, that one, you
(22:26):
can't hear the.
That's going on in the bellycompartment, the luggage compartment,
you can't hear that.
So he could be down therefreaking the out trying to find somebody.
And then they've alreadyexplained if they don't find.
Find something and there's nostimulation and there's enough noise
in the plane, he's not goingto be attracted to what's going on
in the plane up there.
So they go dormant.
And at that point I'm like,okay, now there's still the tricky
(22:48):
part of this dumb shit's gotto end up in the airplane elevator.
Right.
So how does that happen?
There's a lot of coincidencesto it, but you could have solved
the unrealistic piece ofwhere'd this zombie come from?
In this plane by showing abunch getting to the wheel.
You don't even have to show itgetting, like, pulled up with the
landing gear.
Just show them holding on toit and trying to climb up and like,
(23:09):
then cut it back to the planeand you think, oh, they're safe.
They made it.
It went up.
But he's in there.
But I'm with you.
Like, there's.
They didn't take the time tofill some of these weird gaps to.
In order to have a jump scare.
And then a very intense sceneon an airplane.
I have a bigger problem withthe grenade throw in the airplane
that takes out half like aside of the airplane.
(23:32):
But I was like, dude, you're so.
Everything in that plane untilthat was.
The wall of that plane goesout is so compressed, and it's like
that explosion is going to bescientifically twice as big because
of the cabin pressure.
Yeah.
In that plane.
So for it to only blow out achunk of the wall, like they would
(23:56):
have probably.
And I'm.
I don't know enough to knowfor sure, but my guess would be that
it would have blown that planein half.
And there's no land in that,let alone at least not to the point
that anybody survives it,which I also think is a little wild.
Like the way that they.
And good for them.
They showed this thing hittingthe ground and the nose of it fell
(24:17):
off, and I'm just like, oh,all that.
You're like, are they dead?
He survived.
So, yeah, there.
There's some serious random ass.
Well, and then this, you know,this Israeli sh.
Soldier gets her hand cut off.
Like, that knife is thesharpest knife on the planet.
(24:40):
Because listen, I have done some.
Not to human being, but I'vedone cleaning of animals before.
And I have done it with some extremely.
And I mean, you look at thatwrong and it'll cut your eyeball.
Okay.
Sharp knife, you can't cutthrough bone in a swing.
(25:01):
You just can't.
And part of that comes from weget this unrealistic nature of like
chopping someone's head offwith a sword in medieval times because
we see it in movies.
Wrong.
They've.
That got embedded.
And it's funny because the onething that they did get really right
was when he whales the one guywith the goddamn crowbar and then
he can't get it out of his head.
(25:22):
I'm like, that's realistic.
You slam something like aknife, it would have got to her bone.
And I don't care how sharpthat was.
It would have probably gottenpartially through it and got stuck.
It wouldn't have cut it off.
Like, he was using a laserbeam that just like in 1F.
Seriously, you'd have to swingthat some so hard and it would have
(25:46):
to be the sharp.
And he just went and it was done.
I was like, nope, not even ifshe was sitting on an a.
Like some hard surface on the ground.
And that's the other part thatshe does.
He does it out of midair.
All that's going to do isknock her hand down, which means
you lose all the leverage tofinish that cut.
Like, that was a magical knife.
(26:08):
Like.
Yeah.
Now you think about it,Hollywood just does that in so many
corners.
Oh, explosions, all kinds of things.
And that this movie has a lotof those things.
I think you just have to,like, get sucked in and look past
some of that.
But that's also the problemwith doing what we do is.
Yeah.
(26:28):
You get so hyper focused on selling.
Because almost every moviethat has action related to this,
I mean, and it ain't trueunless it's like a John Wick style
where they're like trying tobe as true to form as possible.
But even that's fake is you'relike, you know what?
Someone's probably shootinghim and he would have died 30 minutes
ago.
Well, there's no such thing asa bulletproof suit.
(26:49):
Sorry.
Yeah, even Kevlar hurts.
Like, let's just.
Let's be real.
And he gets shot point blank.
So he's.
Anyway, we digress.
But like, yeah, I mean, it's.
You're not wrong.
Like, realism in.
In Hollywood is especiallylike a zombie movie.
Come on.
Like.
But there are some placeswhere I'm like, wait, what?
(27:11):
Like, every time I watch thatscene happen, I'm like, hang on.
You can't cut her hand off.
Like, he's going through a hot.
Like it has a hot knifethrough butter.
And then in the next scene,you can't get the crowbar out of
the dude's head.
Like, you can't have it both ways.
It's either you have magical weapons.
But why did movies let thathappen, though?
Because they have people that,like, they make movies, they know
this.
They're just.
(27:31):
Like, the audience is dumb,or, like, it just looks cool and
people aren't going to careenough because that stuff happens.
Yeah.
All the time.
There's those discrepanciesin, like, almost every movie you
see.
And there's some movies that'sso bad, you're like, why did the
director not change that?
But it happens so much.
(27:52):
It's a.
It's a.
An entertainment thing.
I. I think it's like, well,how do we make this a shock and awe
type scene?
Right?
Like, he's got 12 seconds.
You gotta have the hand cutoff quick.
And so we got to cut it off ina mere two seconds.
Right?
So.
And even then, if you thinklogically, like, if he's got 12 seconds,
he probably has less than fiveto get the hand cut off before he
(28:16):
gets into the bloodstreamenough to infect her.
So it's like, I don't know.
That's the only thing I thinkof is it's always for the entertainment
or the shock and awe of it,or, like the.
Oh, God, what just happened.
But when you stop and thinkabout it, I'm like, that's.
Makes me think of that.
That when the rock movie, it'scalled, like, the Tower or whatever,
where he.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
(28:37):
Like, there's so many videosof, like, the physics of, like, how
far he jumped and where hewould, like, what actually would
have happened.
It was so, like, justcomically like, no.
Like, I'm sorry.
Like, never would even.
Even for, like, the average fan.
It was like, no.
Like, no.
Yeah.
But again, then they just lookat the, like, directors, like, don't.
(28:59):
Superhuman.
Like, dude, I don't know.
Movies that are more inrealism would.
Be nice because he's got a freaking.
What's the word?
I can't.
He's got a fake leg.
Yeah.
He's not even.
Like.
He's like.
And look, I.
People with prosthetics can dosome really amazing, but jumping's
(29:24):
not really one of them.
Not off of a helicopter, anyway.
Anyway.
So it's just one of thosethings where I was.
Yeah, I'm with you.
Like, sometimes they have tomake choices to make it look cool.
But I have a heart.
And I've always.
Even before the podcast, I'mlike, wait, that's not okay.
It looked kind of cool, but Ijust wish she Would have grabbed
her arm, slammed it on therailing right there and then started
(29:46):
cutting and make it two orthree chops and she's miserable.
But, like, one clean rightthrough the bone.
Not gonna happen.
Anyway, I am just gettingcaught up in the details of this
silly.
But I.
This movie, I'm with Alec.
I think there's moments inthis movie where I'm like, this is
cool.
And then there's like.
I'm like, what the am Iwatching right now?
(30:07):
Like, it's just weird.
And then at the end, like,when they're at the who, there's
some serious intense momentsin that when they're running through.
And then there's.
And then the, like, the apexof this whole thing is him sitting
in that freezer afterinjecting himself, like, waiting.
(30:28):
And then all of a sudden I'mlike, okay, I'm kind of bored now.
Like, there's no.
And then we go straight fromthat into this dialogue, this voiceover
of, like, here comes the war.
And I'm like, I don't give aabout your war anymore.
Like, now I'm like, soanticlimactic of this final scene
that I'm just like, Jesus.
(30:50):
Stupid.
I would rather have been like,this super intense chase to get them
out, and they're freaking theout in this room, and they're like,
we got to make sure this works.
And then they all inject themselves.
And then, like, the zombiesbreak through, and then they recognize
that it worked, right?
So then they can go throughand kill these zombies and then do
the work of, you know,creating this whatever disease or
(31:14):
formulated modified diseasethat makes them invisible.
But, like, I just would.
I wanted a bigger climax ofthe film than him giving himself
a shot of some unknown,incurable or, like, curable deadly
disease that then he justwalks out.
Like, just could have done itbetter anyway, that's my opinion.
(31:40):
Should we rate it?
Kick it off, Madsen.
I'm gonna give this movie.
I'm gonna give it a three.
I think there's.
For the time period it cameout in terms of zombie movies and
what it represented, I thinkit was revolutionary making fast
(32:00):
zombies.
And I think Brad Pitt'scharacter does a good job moving
us through the storyline.
But as we talked about,there's definitely some holes in
the narrative.
And this CGI is bad.
And in a movie like this,like, it needs to be good because
it's a part of the.
The shock and awe of it all.
(32:20):
But I think there's some great scenes.
Like, I'll always remember thescene of that child that crouches
down like basically on thefloor while the zombies are running
past it.
And as JJ talked about, theconcept of how this virus spreads
and what it's doing is really interesting.
It's different than all the others.
And I think there's somecertainly tense moments in this movie
(32:41):
and I think part of it kind ofat the end presents like a video
game.
Like you're kind of playingthe last of us.
You got to sneak around andmake it happen.
But as Jay just talked about,I don't think the payoff at the end
is exactly what we were hoping for.
And it's maybe because theywere originally thinking they were
going to do like a second anda third and that might be part of
the problem.
And then it never got fasttracked again.
(33:03):
And maybe that was part of itbecause I would like to think they
would have had a better climaxat the end if they'd known.
Hey, we don't know if we'regonna get another one so let's make
sure it's good.
But it's a three.
Will I ever watch this one again?
I've seen it twice now.
Probably not.
Probably not.
(33:25):
And I'm okay with that.
But I think it was enjoyedseeing in theaters.
It was, it was fun to watch itagain but eh, it'll just fade into
the ether.
Yeah, I'm gonna give it a two.
I want to give it better, butthen I also want to give it lower.
(33:46):
It's one of those movies whereit's like what I really hate, I really
hate.
But what I really like isreally, really good.
And I, I do like the conceptof the zombie ism and how it works
and I like the idea.
I've always enjoyed like alittle more threatening level zombie
than like the barely walkingtype zombie even unless you have
(34:07):
a bunch of them, you're nevergoing to get overwhelmed in that
situation.
I will say.
I don't know, like I'm.
Yeah, I'm with you.
I think I wanted a betterpayoff at the end.
I want a better cgi.
I want to like it too becausethe book is so good.
But I think the book, if theydid what the book talks about, it
would have turned into a moviethat Matson would have despised because
(34:28):
it would have been very slowand very character driven.
Because it's about thepolitics of the zombie war, like
human nature and how peoplebecome shitty in the.
And we see a little bit aboutof that in the like what Alec talked
about with the cop and likethe, the city when it all starts
to go to hell.
And even in, like, Israel,like, we see the other side of it
(34:51):
where this, you know, what istypically looked upon as a nation
that is very.
They're going to close theirborders and shut everything down,
and they're letting people in,in the midst of a very dangerous
time to let unknown quantitiesof human beings into your city.
But they're doing that.
And he says that moment wherehe's like, hey, anybody we can save
(35:11):
is.
Is great, you know, so it'slike they do have some of those political
pieces or those human naturepieces from the book that they talk
about in the book.
But there's so much good inthe book about how nasty we humans
can be in the.
In the wake of.
Of tragedy and this shitty things.
And also on the flip side,like, how amazing and wonderful human
(35:33):
beings can be in the samecircumstance, right?
Depending on your point ofview and how you handle things and
then the situation that you're in.
So I wanted to see a littlebit more of that.
And again, to your point,maybe it would have come in movie
two and three, but they justdidn't do a good enough job on this
one for it to warrant two andthree is what I'm assuming.
But yeah.
So two for me, I. I don't know.
(35:54):
Like I said, it's one of those things.
There's no in between inanything in this movie.
I either hate it or I'm like,that was dope.
So it probably gets a littlehigher than my brain wants me to
give it, but that's where I'm at.
Alec, poo poo it, my friend.
There you go.
I will say, so.
I struggle with this onebecause you can do kind of when it
(36:19):
comes to movies, in my opinion.
You can do whatever you wantand you can break off a source material,
but it's got to be cool if you do.
Yeah.
And this movie isn't as coolas it could be.
Like, I go think about the.
The kind of.
The big moment, right, thatclimax where you're in the CDC and
sneaking around.
And then in comparison tolike, I Am Legend, where he's in
the bank and he's got theCOVID the flashlight going up and
(36:42):
down.
Like that's at the beginningof the movie, right?
That's what's setting you up.
And to just compare, like,those two moments.
Like, well, one of them isreally cool.
The other one, when in.
When you compare, it's like,ah, man, like, you could have been
really good, but it's almostlike you got lazy or you were relying
(37:03):
on possibly a second and thirdone to really ramp it up, and so
it falls flat.
And then I also have a realproblem with the timing of this,
because another thing I reallyenjoy is this concept that he learns
in Israel about the 10th man.
Right.
Who's his only job is if nineother people.
That's a really cool concept.
(37:23):
And then it spills into thisfact that, oh, yeah, we started building
this giant fucking wall, bythe way, when we heard about zombies
in India.
But then I'm like, okay, well,what's the timeline of this thing?
Because there's a lot ofpeople in India, right.
If.
If outbreak happens there.
I mean, you.
(37:44):
Yeah, it's day.
You got a day.
And it's.
Yeah.
You know, snowballed enough toget out of control, and still, you
know, Israel had enough timeto build a giant wall around Jerusalem
and finish it just in timebefore this happens.
And so you have this kind of.
It's hard for me to nail downthe timing of what's going on or
(38:05):
anything like that, because itjust doesn't seem to make sense.
Or it's like, how did youprepare for this?
If your first clue that it washappening is already that it happened
and now you're fighting theclock or all these little things.
So it's like.
Or, you know, this communiqueout of this base in South Korea is
like.
(38:25):
You know, it makes you think,like, oh, we got this a day and a
half ago.
Yeah.
Right.
Or two days ago.
But in this entire time, youknow, the whole world's lost or whatever.
So it's.
It's hard for me to follow.
And the moments where youcould have made it really cool, instead
you had stupid CGI waves ofzombies that just crash into each
(38:47):
other like water and not flesh.
So it's like, oh, that's a. Imean, I. I watch this movie pretty
frequently, actually.
Now I think about it like I'veseen it a good half dozen times,
but it's.
It's a background noise movie.
Yeah.
And it's usually someone elsehas put it on, and so I can look
up real quick.
(39:08):
Yeah, that's funny.
The guy shot himself.
The doctor shot himself.
He's gonna fix the virus.
That's funny.
And then, you know, go back todoing whatever I was doing.
And so it's a one for me.
I don't like this movie at all.
Fair enough.
Certainly not the best pick ofBrad Pitt.
No.
Well played, Matson.
Definitely well played.
(39:28):
I like that hairdo for him, too.
Yeah.
Yeah, he didn't have a wholelot of wins in this.
No.
Yeah.
No.
Yeah.
Not good.
All right, well, there it is, man.
That's the end of Brad Pitt month.
We're moving on to John Cusackmonth next month.
But before we do that, Alec,tell everybody where we can find
them.
Where they can find us.
Wow.
Well, we can find you guyswherever you are.
(39:51):
No, you guys can find us on YouTube.
That's the best place to findour smiling faces or frowny faces
or pissed off faces when wehave to watch stupid movies.
Other than that, find us onPatreon at What's our verdict?
Reviews.
Patreon.
We put up categories everymonth for different movies that we
want to do.
Sometimes based around actors,theme, genre, or, you know, just,
(40:15):
you know, fuck with Matson month.
That's one that I want to comeback and circle back to and so you
can get involved there, voteon a topic, and then we select some
movies that correlate to thattopic and you guys can vote again
on which ones that we watchfor the month.
This means a lot to us andbragging rights are always on the
table.
So, you know, go, vote, pickmy movies, don't pick anybody else.
(40:38):
I've had a couple stinker months.
And then Behind a good ADBpaywall, there is over 600 extra
videos that range anywherefrom bloops to outtakes to random
conversations, all the way upto full length episodes of movies
that nobody should ever watch.
Speaking of that, shout out toour current patrons, Rick and Charles.
(41:03):
Appreciate you all.
So join us.
What's our favorite Patreon?
Extra content, a little bit of paywall.
But voting is absolutely free,so you can go join there.
Select the movies that we doand talk about and are forced to
watch.
And with that, I will kick itback to the Titan of Terror, the
Saltine of Swat.
A jj.
(41:23):
Yes, sir.
Thanks, Alec.
Yeah, go check us out.
You have a good time?
I swear, maybe most of thetime we're pretty funny.
A lot of times only when we'renot trying to be.
I think, though, we're hilarious.
That's right.
All right, well, there it is.
We appreciate you tuning inand we'll catch you on the next one.
Hasta la vista, baby.
Cinematic.
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