Further Proof that Hollywood can Ruin Anything

Rating: 1/10 (9 March 2014)

As a generic zombie film this would be average at best however as a film which purports to be 'Based on the book by Max Brooks' it is nothing short of sacrilegious and appalling. It's a shame really because there is some solid writing and good performances on hand and it could have been a good film with just one minor change: the speed of the zombies.
In the book the zombies are slow moving and ungainly. Infection after a bite is a slow and harrowing process. Whilst the zombies are easily outwitted their power comes from overwhelming numbers, resilience and emotional reactions on behalf of the human race (not wanting to kill a loved one). The results are genuinely chilling and horrifying stories which tug at the heart strings and paint a vivid portrait of human survival.
This film throws all of those points out of the window and might as well just replace the zombies with a mile high tide of flesh called 'The Blob'. Zombies that run and jump miss the point so hard it is painful to watch. They might as well just be killer aliens or swarms of rabid dogs. The scene with them climbing over the wall is just outrageously stupid. The screen writers/director clearly liked the infantry square scene from the book but couldn't be bothered with the setup for it.
Worst of all however is the gaping plot hole that has come about as a result of messing with the time it takes for the infected to turn. Early on it states that air travel assisted in the spread of the infection yet it takes fully half the film for the main protagonist to conclude that in some people the infection can lay dormant for a time and isn't always instant. Logically therefore he had to assume up until that point that the cabin crew were serving tea and coffee to planes full of raging hell beasts? This story is a classic demonstration of everything that is wrong with modern films and major studios. They are so afraid of people switching off if the story moves too slow for even an instant and so they feel they have to fill every single scene with an explosion, a fight scene, a chase, a plane crash... all of which the hero inexplicably survives.
28 Days Later had the infected (not zombies) running and it worked well. It managed to create some really tense moments and some fast paced action whilst offsetting them with the desolation and destruction of daytime in an abandoned city. It did so with a significantly lower budget and yet was far better than this film. This is because whilst they were fast and agile they weren't in possession of superhuman strength. That and they were played by actual people and not just dodgy CG.
For the money they spent on this film they could have taken a handful of stories from the book and strung them together back to back or under a common narrative. When I heard they were making this film I imagined it would be like the book and work around the interview concept. The film would open on some scarred or tormented individual sitting in an interview room telling their story as the camera slowly focused in on them. It would then flashback to events happening in real time and the viewer would understand the physical scars and damaged psychology of the individual.
The result would have been fantastic. You still could have had all the action and gore that modern audiences lust after but with a genuinely chilling story behind it.
Instead they just made a generic over-the-top action film with some of the most preposterous zombies I have ever seen. Worse: by using the name World War Z they have all but assured that such a film can never see the light of day.