World War Z (2013) 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review

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Based on Max Brook's 2006 novel of the same name, the feature film adaptation of World War Z was as much of a sure thing as can be, backed with a huge budget, star power, and a hot director. But after being plagued by well-documented production difficulties and significant budget blowouts courtesy of the entire third act being re-filmed, the decent box office returns couldn't convince the studio to continue the story through promised sequels, and the franchise has laid dormant ever since. Does that mean it was a bad film? No, quite the contrary.

Whilst stuck in traffic gridlock on a Philadelphia street, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), a retired UN investigator, and his family become embroiled in a deadly virus outbreak that spreads with terrifyingly rapid speed, causing the infected to become rage-fuelled zombies intent on just one motive; infecting the uninfected.

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Following a suspenseful escape sequence that leaves a trail of devastation in its wake, the family is choppered out to the security of a vessel on the Hudson River, which has become a makeshift command bunker by Lane's contact UN Deputy Secretary-General Thierry (Fana Mokoena). Tasked with attending to the remaining survivors, Lane is coaxed into leading a team of Navy Seals to track down the virus's origin, which takes him to South Korea and then Israel, where the mission takes a turn for the worst which leaves him with little assistance in fighting a battle which may have already become lost.

For a genre that normally confines its storytelling to reign in limited budgets, World War Z is arguably the first time a zombie feature has attempted a truly epic scope, and the results were, and remain, undeniably impressive. With a threat that feels surprisingly grounded (and infinitely more possible in a post-COVID environment) and a cracking pace, World War Z is a highly entertaining and edge-of-the-seat ride. That's despite special effects often looking less than special and a relatively charmless turn from Brad Pitt making the oft-likable star resemble a bore.

Still, it does need to be acknowledged that whilst the film stands alone to a degree, its deliberately open-ended conclusion makes it feel more incomplete than it should. That's not to say it doesn't have value, but it is certainly curious that there hasn't been an attempt to return to the world via a sequel, reboot or re-envisage through a long-form streaming series... but I'm sure it's being considered as we speak.

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Video

World War Z is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.40:1 in the Rec. 2020 color space, finished with dynamic Dolby Vision and static HDR-10 high dynamic range formats and encoded with AVC H.265 compression.

Filmed digitally and resolved to a 2K digital intermediate, World War Z's 4K debut presents the film to its best possible capacity, but with the limitations of the source, it's relying more heavily on the HDR and wide color gamut to do the heavy lifting for this upgrade. Still, it's a decent improvement over previous iterations, and this 4K version is definitely the go-to version over the previous 2D or 3D Blu-ray editions.

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For a film of such a recent vintage, you'd expect good things from the transfer here, and on a technical level, at least, that's what we get. Unfortunately, World War Z is inherently an unappealingly shot film, with every shot draped in that yellow filter that was extremely popular around the time the film was made. I'm also afraid to say that some of the less convincing special effects look even less impressive on the small screen.

If you've never had a copy of the film in your collection, this is the one to get - but others might question the benefit of re-buying.

Audio

World War Z is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, at 24 bits.

Mirroring the aggressive theatrical mix, World War Z features a full-throated reference quality mix that will make your neighbors believe there's a war in your lounge room.

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From the scenes of relative tranquility in the film's opening to the breakout of the zombie horde to the explosions and gunfire that permeate most of the proceedings, World War Z never breaks from providing an involving and inclusive mix that neglects to use all the available channels of sound. The mid and rear surrounds carry a significant amount of aural information, with bullets ricocheting and zombie screeches moving from left to right, panning with ease and complete believability, grounding the otherwise outlandish in a sense of reality.

The low frequency channel remains alive throughout, underscoring most sequences with significant low end information but never overpowering what is a carefully balanced mix.

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Extras

Unfortunately, the film's Australian distributor, All Interactive, has elected to not include a Blu-ray version of the film in this set and since the previous extras have not been encoded on the UHD (nor have any new features produced) that means we have absolutely nothing here. It's like being back to the DVD days where 'chapter stops' and 'menus' were a legitimate selling point.