Horror Trunk Review: Global Gobble

Rating: 4/10 (25 June 2013)

orld War Z follows Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) and his family as they face a zombie pandemic. Gerry is an ex UN employee who (luckily) has previous training in combat, and is sent on a mission to find the source of the infection, and a possible cure. He finds himself in a race against time to stop the virus before humanity becomes extinct....
World War Z is a book by Max Brooks that explores individual experiences across the globe during the outbreak of an unknown virus. This adaptation chooses to focus on the story of one family, as they become caught up in the catastrophic events. The film attempts to compensate for the loss of individual and alternative perspectives, by using a variety of locations, as we see Pitt attempt to go 'around the world in one film'. This is not to be considered a zombie film in the horror genre sense, it is a disaster film. The infected are shown as a swarm of frenzied, chaotic locust of human bodies, who are capable of mass destruction (Think scarabs from The Mummy films).
The interesting theories stand out like sore (bitten) thumbs in contrast to the rest of the film, where clearly parts of the script have been cherry picked from the original book. Pitt's acting is standard, and you are left feeling that anyone could have filled his shoes. A lot of wasted talented actors in this film, which leaves the story flat and faltering. The film starts out well but the pace and story seem to waver towards the end, offering an unsurprisingly clichéd ending. A 'Zombie' disaster feature that bends over for a nice safe ending.
Think less 28 Days Later and more Volcano meets some stray scarabs..with explorer Pitt thrown in for good measure...
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