A good zombie film

Rating: 8/10 (11 July 2013)

I really liked this film.
It was the perfect mix of intimate intensity, emotion and absolute, terrifying spectacle.
Directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace, Monster's Ball), and starring Brad Pitt, the film deals with a zombie outbreak on a global scale and the attempts to find the source and cure.
Certainly, the film is barely ten minutes young when it all kicks off. We're quickly introduced to Gerry Lane (Pitt), his wife (Mireille Enos) and their children and then the outbreak begins. Certainly the difference between this film and almost any other zombie film preceding it is scale. It is a LARGE scale film, the CGI is used incredibly effectively for portraying thousands of zombies at a time.
It is this that creates the intensity. The sheer numbers and volume of the zombies overwhelm and the film certainly has fun with the large scale scenes and the behaviour of these creatures. There are a few times where the sheer scale of the events on the screen is awesome in the very literal sense of the word, you are in awe.
This scale is impressive on a technical level but it's even more impressive that Marc Forster, Brad Pitt and scriptwriters (initially J. Michael Straczynski, then later Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof for re-writes) manage to find the human story and relationships amid all the mayhem. Certainly the supporting cast provide compelling roles, special mention must be made to Daniella Kertesz as an Israeli soldier.
The humanity of the story helps to fuel the tension for the other kind of 'zombie' scenes, which are the quieter, scarier type of scenes which don't feature as many zombies. Is it here that the pacing (and scale) are dimmed down hugely. The film doesn't stop to a halt, but the tone of the third half of the film is certainly slower than the rest of the film. Apparently, it was here that the rewrites and re-shooting had their main impact on the film. It's a noticeable shift in the overall tone of the film which actually is quite welcome for one main reason.
There is no way they could have gone bigger than scenes earlier in the film. They don't try to outdo the earlier scenes in scale or number of zombies present, instead, it shifts the tension much more to the characters and I found it works. I could imagine that people could have disappointed with the lack of 'bang' at the end of the film but for me, it worked.
The film has a few really nice touches in there as well, nice actions the characters take that seem very honest and real as well as you hear about some countries reactions to the outbreak which make sense.
Now, it is most certainly true to say that the film differs from the book. That is a fact. The book deals with World War Z as a series of interviews from people important to the event itself, separate narratives and so on. The film has a single narrative path, beginning, middle, end, and only really following Gerry Lane throughout the events. However, I found the film to be a superior zombie film as well as a stunning (and intense) action picture.
The point was also made afterwards that whilst it has scary moments and is very intense, it is light on actual gore. Certainly the usual zombie cliché of some guy graphically getting eaten alive is not present. The film certainly isn't a 15 for explicit violence but the general tone of the film is not only intense, but pretty bleak too(I don't often mention the film's rating in my reviews btw).
Anyway, really enjoyed the film. Would easily watch again.