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Brad Pitt, Abigail Hargrove, and Mireille Enos
© Paramount Pictures |
Poor Mireille Enos. By now everyone knows that the original ending of this movie was scrapped, and massive rewrites drastically changed its content. But since the other ending would have been pretty damn sexist, too, we might as well stick to what's made it to the screen.
So here's what we get: in exchange for keeping his family safe and fed, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) has to go back to work as a UN investigator to help put an end to the zombie apocalypse. While it's natural to not want to be separated in a time of crisis, his wife Karin (Enos) objects on the grounds that the job is too hard on Gerry.
I mean, women, am I right? Always nagging you to not go out there and save the world, thereby ensuring that your daughters can grow up without getting eaten by zombies. You know, if you can even survive that long. Because what about your feeeeelingsssssss?
Before you start to object that that is just one scene, it also includes her very passive-aggressively remarking that she will be the one to keep their family safe (because, again, ending the zombie apocalypse and provide them with safe passage until that end is totally the opposite of keeping one's family safe). And that would be the sum total of her scenes, unless you also want to count the time that she calls Gerry at the exact wrong moment, inciting a zombie attack. AmIrite?
By way of not-actually-achieving balance, the movie does feature another central, strong female character. She gets to occupy a role traditionally held by a man and by styled like a man as well. It kind of feels like a zero sum game.
I don't know. There's a fantastic opening sequence, where the whole world just goes crazy and you don't know why, and you run, run, run, trying to survive. But after that, the movie just deflates. Gerry flies around picking up clues (thanks, Michiel Huisman! Come back to Nashville soon!), and I'm sort of in love with the 10th man rule, but the resolution is so boring and abrupt that it's hard to believe it's happening, even as Peter Capaldi assures me it is.
It's just . . . alright, spoilers, you guys. If you had a pen and multiple pieces of paper, and you were about to inject yourself with a deadly virus because you have no play left but to test your theory that zombies don't bite the dying, and you wrote a message to hold up to the security camera, would you write, "Tell my family I love them"? Or would you write what you were taking and the dosage? Because it strikes me that a personal message is some page 2 stuff.
This whole movie is page 2 stuff.
