Brad Pitt races to find a way of saving humanity from zombie hordes

Rating: 8/10 (22 June 2016)

When an infection sweeps the world turning ever increasing numbers into mindless zombies, former UN investigator Gerry Lane's first priority is to get his wife and daughters to safety. When his former boss calls he realises that the only way to guarantee their immediate safety is to return to his old job as is promised that his family will be kept safe on a ship far from danger. After a struggle against the zombies they get to a helicopter and fly to the ship. Once there Gerry learns that the disease came to the United States from a base in South Korea. He flies there with a disease expert hoping to find the first case. Once there things don't go well; the doctor is killed and it becomes apparent that there is no way of finding the first case. He does however hear that Israel has managed to stay disease free as they built a massive wall shortly before the zombie pandemic swept the world. Gerry gets back in the plane and continues to Jerusalem only to find its defences are breached shortly after he arrives. He does however notice that the zombies ignore a handful of people; this leads him to come up with a plan to save humanity; it won't be easy though and if he isn't careful his cure could be just as fatal.
People expecting a full on horror movie may be disappointed as it lacks the gore most zombie movies feature; it does however manage to keep tension high from the opening scenes to the films conclusion. The fast moving hordes of zombies are pretty scary as they flood through the streets like a pyroclastic flow. The story is a bit episodic as Gerry moves from Philadelphia to New Jersey to the ship to South Korea to Israel and finally to Wales but that isn't a problem; each location presents different problems for him to overcome. There are some moments that are a little bit too unlikely, even in the context of a zombie apocalypse, most notably when Gerry and a young soldier he saved in Israel are the sole survivors of a plane crash! The cast does a solid enough job; Brad Pitt in particular in the role of Gerry Lane. The film's end is merely the 'beginning of the end' and a sequel is inevitably in production. Overall I'd recommend this to anybody wanting an intense but not particularly gory time.