Seeking a Friend for the End of the World: Movie Review

Sometimes it takes an unfortunate event to find the one you’re truly meant to be with, and it doesn't get more unfortunate than the end of the world. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a wonderful movie about Dodge (Steve Carell), a timid insurance salesman and Penny, a spunky 28 year old (Keira Knightley) teaming up to help each other come to terms with impending doom.

A giant asteroid is heading towards Earth and all attempts to destroy it have failed so humanity has about 21 days left to live. Penny and Dodge have been neighbours for years but never once met and it's the end of the world that brings them together. I don't like Keira Knightley, I always found her to be a little annoying. However her upbeat, always-optimistic Penny and Carell’s boring, always-playing-it-safe complimented each other perfectly and created such great chemistry that this unlikely pairing didn't feel so unlikely.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a dark and a very funny movie. You always have the end of the world at the back drop and as the relationship between Penny and Dodge shapes up; you can't help but hope that the world wouldn't end and that there would be a standard romantic comedy happy ending.

I love this movie's take on how people would react in a doomsday scenario; it's not you action beat em up movie where one man must face all odds to protect his blah blah blah, it all has been done before. In this movie you have regular people trying to cope with their deaths in many different ways from suicide to going about day to day activities to rioting and some other more sensual ways. 

Sometimes it can take a lifetime to find you true love, but when you find that person it doesn't matter whether you spend decades, or few days with them. The comfort of being with your one and only can even make end of the world bearable. 

I give Seeking a Friend for the End of the World 8 giant asteroids-speeding towards-Earth out of 10.

And as always a special thanks to Ammad Wajahat

World War Z: Movie Review

World War Z is an interesting movie. It's smart at times and yet it makes the same cliché mistakes that many of zombie movies tend to make. In World War Z zombies no longer turn people into undead flesh eaters, but it's a virus like Swine flu or Sars, it moves  from host to host infecting them. No one is safe but if it's a virus there must be a cure. Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is the U.N. investigator who is called in to find and root out the virus. Going around the world chasing leads from South Korea to Israel to find the potential cure. 

There were time in the movie that seem so foolish and an obvious set ups for zombie attacks that it took away some of the charm of the movie. Randomly phone ringing when making a dash for safety, zombies hiding in the closest, kicking the cans in an empty hallway, and random Arab girl leading a celebratory song in Israel on a loud speaker, when it has been established that zombies are attracted by loud noises. 

World War Z is an intense ride that picks up within the first 5 in of the movie and doesn't stop till the very end. There were slow points but they were necessary because they gave us some background story. The fast zombies worked in this movie, they were first introduced in 28 Days Later and this movie uses them appropriately. 

World War Z is yet another movie that shows how fragile the society is and how quickly people turn to anarchy and looting. 

When facing impending doom how will you react? Will you follow the rules or do whatever it takes to survive?

I give World War Z 7 deadly zombie bites out of 10.