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.
Go Goa Gone is a pretty
good movie for the first of its kind in Bollywood. Apart from your typical
Bollywood annoyances this movie was quite entertaining. Granted my opinion on
this is fairly biased given my love for Zombie flicks, however I believe it
stands on its own. The movie borrowed ideas from Zombieland and Shaun of the
Dead that were easily recognizable and familiar; although nowhere as blatantly
as many other Bollywood movie. Also, the setting of the movie felt eerily like
the video game: Dead Island. Few scenes felt like they were exactly the same as
some missions in the game.
The overall acting was good and the jokes were smart and stuck for most parts, some more than others. The chemistry between the three protagonists, and overall cast was spot on. Saif Ali Khan’s pseudo Russian Mafioso was an entertaining gag when originally introduced but it got a little old and drabby after a while. The female lead in the movie was underused and felt like a background character, other than being your prototypical Bollywood 'Damsel in distress'.
The plot is very simple
(like any other zombie movie) and can be easily figured out. The movie follows
a very typical zombie flick formula: Intro to the main characters, putting them
in a setting of zombies, explaining the origin of zombies (little lacklustre in
this move), figuring out how to fight and kill zombies, the lack of ability to
shoot the zombies at first and complete mastery of headshots by the end of the movie (which in this case was about half a day), and so
on. This movie is as original as any zombie movie can get. Every scene was fairly predictable. Not to say that this is a bad thing, all zombie
movies are alike. It’s the chemistry between the characters that really separate
the greats from the rest. As liner as this movie was, the surprising anecdote
about zombies which was cheesier than the cheesiest cheese cake, felt original.
I laughed out loud several times during the movie; admittedly the humor was
along the lines of 3 Idiots and Delhi Belly i.e. buddy movies with a lot of
raunch.
The movie was 1 hour and
48 minutes in length, which is a little long for a movie of this sort. 1 hour
and 30 to 40 minutes max is ideal for a zombie flick. It’s hard to keep
the audience immersed. The jokes get lazy and pushy and the situations where protagonist
has to escape the zombie hoards get nuttier and nuttier to the point of
complete disbelief.
My biggest complaint against this movie is its anti-smoking campaign.
It’s almost ridiculous to see an anti-smoking campaign in a movie about pot-smoking booze hounds itching for parties that feature Mary Jane. There was an abundance of smoking scenes that featured small messages warning against smoking. It’s almost like the NRA running ads that featured gun-related killings and having messages popping up simultaneously that say “Don’t shoot people in the face. Shooting people in the face is bad.” I understand that the movie means well and doesn’t want to glamorize smoking, but omitting smoking altogether from the movie would be more effective anti-smoking rhetoric than a miniscule, meaningless and insincere insulting sign at the bottom of the screen.
Overall though, I would recommend this movie to any zombie fans out there. If you’re not a fan of Bollywood but enjoy zombies it’s still worth the watch. The nod to Bollywood cheesiness near the end of the movie was worth the price all on its own.There were obvious “Are you serious? He would totally get bitten in that situation.” type of scenes and the anti-smoking messages were very annoying. However, they are forgivable because it’s Bollywood’s first attempt at the genre and from the looks of it they have done a good job.
