Planet of the Dead

Rating: 5/10 (24 June 2013)

The smell of blood was in the air, and the critics were baying. Production problems, re-writes (including a third act restructuring by premier go-to-guy Damon Lindelof), and a ballooning budget - it spelled a disaster that would have the critics crawling over each other to find the funniest words to describe its dreadfulness. As with John Carter before it, how disappointing it must have been to be presented with a half-decent movie. This is a brisk global thriller with some nifty set-pieces and a dogged determination to tell a straightforward story.
I haven't read the source novel by Max "Son of Mel" Brooks, but by all accounts I wouldn't recognise it as the story told in this film. Brad Pitt (also producing) plays Gerry, a former UN worker who's worked in dodgy hotspots like Liberia, who becomes the reluctant saviour of humankind when the planet becomes overrun by "Zees". The zombies are portrayed like ants, bacteria, a Final Reckoning... This is the undead apocalypse in long-shot, which kind of muzzles their menace.
Many modern movies feel overlong, but this is one that could do with fleshing out. While Gerry is gallavanting across South Korea, Israel, and, err, Wales, his family is in on a ship in the Atlantic, crying out for more character development. And for Gerry himself, it seems like every time he steps off a plane there's a chase scene waiting for him. Add to this the spoiler-tastic trailer and it all adds up to a cripplingly lack of tension.
Tellingly, the best scenes in the film occur at the end, in the enclosed space of a science complex. It's here that the film takes a breath, and it most resembles the simpler, mostly superior zombie runarounds of yesteryear.
Saying that, World War Z is a worthwhile addition to the genre. Purists may despair at the lack of gore and the absence of threat (Romero's original Dead series would never have indulged such an impervious and saintly hero), and readers at the departures from the novel. But mostly it should be enjoyed for what it is: a solid, workmanlike action-adventure, moderately original in its style and scope, if not its predictable plot developments.