If I had a nickel for every time a man in a dystopian world had a cat as mental suport, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
Apocalypse Z: El principio del fin
Carles Torrens
Spain, 2024
★★
Didn't need to be almost 2 hours but it's fine. A little tweak here and there and you got a winner. I mean, if they weren't setting up a sequel.. we'll see how it goes.
Manel, our protagonist, in the book spent a good time closed in his own house. Drinking alchool. Doing so he saw how the zombies started to invade his town.
While the movie goes fast forward with the whole zombie outbreak and everything, the book focused more on our protagonist keeping a diary where he wrote how everything started to spiral after the terrorist attack in Dagestan and the spread of TSJ virus.
The Movie also focus more at how Manel is feeling after losing his wife. In the movie it's been only a year, while in the book (If I recall correctly) it's been more, because Manel started to take care of Locullo as a way to recover from depression. That's why the cat is really important in the story.
We don't see any of this in the movie, in fact when Manel start exloring to recover food, there is no zombie in sight.
Miguel in the book turn into a zombie, after being bitten by one of them. He was trying to fight some zombies after Manel told him how he managed to defeat a zombie soldier with his arpoon.
Manel's neighbour in the book is a man of his own age called Miguel.
In the movie is a old lady in a wheelchair named Gabriela.
In the movie Gabriela decided to take her own life to not slow down Manel when he proposed to run away together to safety.
The boat named Corinto was never a property of Manel. It was a just a boat he found when he reached the seaport.
In the book Manel find the baby zombie while exploring, and putting an end to their sofference made him very miserable for days. In the movie meanwhile, Manel find the baby zombie on a boat, but this is used as a cheap and quick jumpscare for the viewer. In fact they even cut the scene to not show what happened to them after the discovery.
Not that I'm complaining, but maybe it could have been better to not include that scene at all.
While in the book Manel and Locullo stayed on the boat for days or weeks before being rescued by the russian sailors, in the movie we see him using a speedboat for a couple of hours (?) before being found.
Now there is a whole tiny story arc that was cut from the book.
While in the movie we see the whole shanenigans between the sailors, the refugees and Pritchenko, the book is totally different.
Ushakov forced Manel (by using Locullo as an hostage) and Pritchenko to go to explore a destroyed town full of zombies, because Manel was the only one who knew the city and Ushakov wanted a certain briefcase that was at the post office. With them there are also armed people to keep them on check (and defending them from the zombies). I won't bore you with more because it's a very long explaination, but I will tell you that this part was somewhat important in the book, because Manel managed to observe and see how much time it take for a bitten victim to turn into a zombie. (This all happene while he, Pritchenko and the the other people were stuck into an old shopping mall)
While in the movie Pritchenko was wounded by the sailors shooting him while he and Manel where running away, In the book his wounds were way worse, beccause the famous briefcase that Ushakov wanted had a sort of seurity sistem that made it to EXPLODE if someone else aside Ushakow tried to open it (I think it needed a password? I don't remember well). In fact in the book Pritchenko was half burn and lost some fingers of his hand.
That's why Manel had to reach as fast as possible the hospital.
If you are wondering, Locullo is still alive and well. Nothing is ever going to happen to him, unless the movie decide to change it.
Now, the hospital.
In the movie we see Manel findind this group composed by three little kids, Lucia the nurse and Sister Cecilia.
I the book, it was just Lucia (who was barely 17 at the time) and Sister Lucia who were hiding into a sort of bunker in the basement of the hospital. There Manel and Prit stayed for some months before leaving.
Honestly the only thing I like of this part in the movie is that Lucia is an adult here. Meanwhile I hate the whole thing with the kids, because it was made only to make the whole situation more dramatic. And so the early departure of Sister Cecilia, that in the book not only she became close friend with Pritchenko and helped him to cope with the idea of his family being dead, but also followed the others while reaching a safe point with the helicopter.
I forgot to mention that the group had to leave the hospital, in the book, because a huge fire started in a forest and it was reaching the hospital. While in the movie they had to leave because Ushakow found them.
Review - Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (2024)
Now streaming on Amazon Prime, Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End pits a man and his cat against the living dead as the zombie apocalypse comes to Spain.
