Not the ultimate zombie movie it aims to be

Rating: 7/10 (23 September 2013)

Huge big budget blockbuster adaptation, albeit loosely, of the Max Brooks novel of the same name. More serious in tone, the film explores the consequences of a viral pandemic that turns its victims into zombies, only driven by the urge to infect more people. A star vehicle for Brad Pitt, World War Z follows an ex-UN employee who is blackmailed by his former superiors into tracking down the origin of the plague in exchange for the guarantee his wife and children are protected from the terrors of the outside world. Unfortunately, it turns out it's not so easy to pinpoint just where the virus originated, necessitating him to travel around the globe whilst following various breadcrumbs in hopes of finding an answer, and if possible, a cure. Of course, this results in an array of close calls with ravenous zombies in various major cities, including New York, Philadelphia and Jeruzalem. The movie incorporates both close encounters with only a few zombies as well as major zombie offensives against large human populations as seen through Pitt's eyes. It's the former that make for the most suspenseful edge-of-your-seat moments, while the latter gobble up the vast majority of the FX budget, as we see zombie armies attacking helicopters and city walls in force. Such scenes look grandiose and work equally well as further examples of ever active post 9/11 paranoia, but ultimately feel hollow compared to Pitt's more personal experiences up close with the creepy undead. However, in those instances, these zombies just don't appear as frightening or disturbing as those of previous zombie flicks. In fact, if you're watching the TV-show The Walking Dead on a regular basis, World War Z offers little you have not seen before (save for zombie attacks on a bigger scope) and certainly isn't as poignant as a parable showcasing the failure of humans to work together for mutual survival, nor delivers it any moments of intense horror and gore that can match that show's contents. As an exploration of the legitimacy of our fears for pandemics, this movie also proves less effective as more scientific accurate fare the likes of Contagion: think of it more as the silly popcorn variety of that more intelligent type of flick. In addition, Brad Pitt is much too big a movie star to convincingly play the everyman out for basic survival and answers in a world overrun by the living dead. A less well known actor would have worked better for this movie's purposes, but in this day and age of ever increasing numbers of Hollywood flops, studios are afraid to make summer movies that cannot benefit from having big names to draw in audiences. World War Z witnessed its fair share of production problems, including a need for drastic rewrites and 20 million dollar reshoots of its entire third act. To the credit of those involved, you wouldn't think this film experienced such obstacles, as it has a fairly solid ending – including a surprising method of avoiding zombie contact – that still leaves ample room for an unavoidable sequel or two.