For the big summer movies, you need big drama. At least Hollywood seems to think so. And what could be bigger than the end of human life on our planet?
We've already had Tom Cruise in
Oblivion, where most of humanity has already been wiped out--it hasn't done that well, but it's probably got the best title. Soon we'll have Will and Jaden Smith in M. Night Shyamalan's
After Earth (which sounds too much like afterbirth). Then there's Brad Pitt trying to save us in the zombie film
World War Z. There's Guillermo del Toro's
Pacific Rim, where giant monsters arise from the sea. And there's
Elysium, with Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, featuring the classic story where the rich float above the planet while the ruined Earth is for the poor.
But the end of the Earth isn't just for drama any more. We've got two apocalyptically-themed comedies to look forward to:
This Is The End, featuring stars James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen and others playing themselves as the world ends around them. and
The World's End, the latest Simon Pegg/Nick Frost comedy where old friends reunite for a pub crawl amidst annihilation.
I haven't seen any of these films except the first (which I thought was a little low on tension), but there's something worth remembering. It isn't the size (of the threat) that counts, it's what you do with it.
2 Comments:
World War Z is the only one that really appeals because
1) Based on a book by Mel Brooks' son!
2) Concept of fast rather than slow lumbering zombies (which though wasn't in the book)
After watching the new Star Trek movie last weekend (NOTE- the fakey 1960s battle scenes worked better) and end of the world movie trailers that preceded it, I agree- the gritty gray CGI destruction of major metropolitan areas has really become cliché and same-old some old. Although the graphics are clearly much better, it reminds of the first sense of ennui I experienced as a young preteen- just how many times can I watch Tokyo get destroyed by the Monsters? We need a new look.
It is amazing how jaded we've become about CGI--visuals that would have been breathtaking, if not impossible, a few decades ago now make us yawn.
Interesting you're interested in World War Z, since that's the one on the list that seems to be most in trouble. The early word was bad and there was massive rewriting and reshooting. But maybe they've fixed the problem.
As for fast zombies versus slow, certainly fast ones can and have worked, but it still seems like cheating. The old way was the fear of being overwhelmed by an inexorable force--that it was slow just gave you time to realize you were trapped.
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