Smart, Fresh, Immersive and Entertaining

Rating: 7/10 (14 September 2013)

Former UN employee Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), his wife Karin (Mireille Enos) and their two daughters sit in heavy Philadelphia traffic when the city is attacked by a horde of zombies. As the chaos spreads, the Lanes escape the city and take refuge in an apartment complex. Deputy Secretary-General Thierry Umutoni (Fana Mokoena) - an old friend of Gerry's - calls and sends a helicopter to rescue them. The helicopter takes the Lanes to a U.S. Navy vessel off the coast of New York City, where a team of scientists and military personnel are analyzing the scope of the worldwide outbreak. A virologist, Dr. Andrew Fassbach (Elyes Gabel), argues that the plague is a virus, whose origin must be found in order for a vaccine to be developed. Because of his expertise as a former UN investigator, Gerry is tasked with helping Fassbach find the outbreak's source.
Even though Brad Pitt is one of my most favorite actors, I wasn't expecting anything from this movie. When we were at the theaters for this one, I was dragged to another movie since my friend didn't want to see it based on the ridiculously generic trailers. In a world where there have been all kinds of zombie movies, this one didn't look particularly appealing. I finally caught it and was surprisingly entertained. First things first, World War Z actually admits that people living in this world know about zombies instead of cleaning the state clean and setting it in a world where people have no idea about the undead. Since this wasn't a comedy, that alone was very awesome.
The movie travels around the globe as most doomsday movies tend to. Its also PG-13, but the terror of the relentless pursuit of the unconventionally super strong and quick zombies and the impact of the off-camera kills are as genuine as what most good rated R movies can achieve. For a PG-13 zombie movie, it has a refreshing sense of gravitas about it. Brad Pitt looked like he wasn't even trying to 'act' per se, but that came off as very good, while Mireille Enos is tragically underused. It was genuinely amazing to see that both these actors had no make up on. Matthew Fox (Lost) was in a blink and you miss role which was quite intriguing. But by far, the biggest scene stealer was the soldier, Segen (Daniella Kertesz). I just found out about the production troubles of the movie and how the entire climax had to be reshot. I honestly felt that the ending had fluidity and even elevated the stature of the movie by giving us a closer look at the predatory zombies. This doesn't follow the book in any way and has its share of flaws, but can be forgiven for being smart, fresh, immersive and immensely entertaining.
7/10