Although it borrows an awful lot from 28 Days Later, it's still a decent enough watch

Rating: 6/10 (19 November 2013)

Following a zombie outbreak in his home town of Philadelphia, former united nations employee Gerry Lane and his family are forced to flee the area as the zombies are killing everyone in sight. After being chased by zombies round Philadelphia, Gerry and his family are rescued by UN Defence Secretary General Thierry Umutoni (Mokoena). Once they have been flown to safety, Umutoni tells Gerry that a virologist Dr Fassbach (Gabel) believes that the virus originated in South Korea and asks Gerry to accompany Fassbach to South Korea (this is due to Gerry's expertise in 'the field' when he worked for the United Nations). Gerry initially refuses, but decides to accept when Umutoni blackmails him by telling him that if he doesn't do it that him and his family will be flown back to Philadelphia as only 'essential people' are allowed to stay. Fearing that his family won't survive, Gerry reluctantly agrees to help and heads off to South Korea with Dr Fassbach and some army personnel as back up;
I feel that the best way to review this film is to simple divide it into good and bad;
We'll start with the good;
The pacing of World War Z is good - it never drags or becomes dull.
Gerry Lane is a likable guy and that helped in caring for him as a character. The very fact that he didn't want to leave his family behind and only did so to prevent them from being thrown back into the 'lions den' so to speak showed that he was a caring person and a real 'family man'. Any film which sets the protagonist up as a 'nice guy' automatically deserves some praise as far as I'm concerned.
I quite liked the fact that some originality had gone into the script (specifically with the way that Lane manages to stop the zombies from attacking him - it's arguable as to the plausibility of this approach, but at least they tried to do something different).
The bad; Horrendous camera work (particularly at the start) and for nearly every scene which involved mass numbers of zombies attacking. This became quite nauseating at times and left my head spinning.
Rushed ending - is it me or did that ending just come out of nowhere? It almost felt incomplete to me. Could there be a sequel in the not to distant future?
Little to no character development - I felt this film was a bit rushed and therefore didn't allow for much character development.
Stupidity - when Gerry and the female solider (sorry can't remember her name) board the plane for Cardiff, the air hostess opens up the door to the toilet and a zombie bursts out from behind the door. Firstly, how did he get on the plane without anybody noticing or freaking out? Secondly, even if the Zombie somehow managed to get on the plane without anyone spotting him, would he really hide in the toilet and then only start attacking when someone kindly opens the door for him? Not from what I've seen.
Another absurdity was Gerry's method of killing all the passengers when they become zombies whilst he was on board the plane during that same flight. He decides to throw a hand grenade, it explodes and manages to blow a perfectly circular hole in the side of the plane, surely if it could blow a hole in the side of a plane, you would have thought that it would have ruptured the fuel tank thus causing the plane to explode? I didn't buy it and thought that scene was totally implausible.
Overall then, World War Z is not a brilliant film. It's littered with absurdities and is weak in terms of character development. Although it borrows heavily from 28 Days Later, it is still a decent enough film. It's the sort of film that is worth watching once, but I don't think I'd watch it again.