Thoroughly enjoyable action romp

Rating: 8/10 (28 June 2013)

Gerry Lane, having retired as a UN investigator to spend more time with his family, is caught up in the world-wide outbreak of a plague which transforms anyone bitten into a ravening (and incredibly fast) creature with chewing the unaffected as their top priority. Transferred with his family to an aircraft carrier, the price of their continued safety is that he heads up a mission to take epidemic doctor Guppy from Casualty in search of the source of the outbreak, a journey which takes him to Korea, Jerusalem, and -take a deep breath - Cardiff.
I'm not a big fan of zombie movies, but I do love post-apocalypse stories, and this was a good one - I really enjoyed it a lot. After minimal set-up, it jumps straight into the action and never stops. There are those who have said that it is low on gore - it is - and that the structure is unbalanced, with the set pieces early on and the ending rather low key, and there is some truth to this, but neither was a deal breaker for me. I was engaged throughout, on the edge of my seat for much of it, and emotionally invested too.
Brad Pitt, at centre stage, does satisfactorily although I find his haircut distracting. The rest of the case, mostly unknown, is also fine, but they are there just to serve a purpose. There are elements which leave you puzzled - David Morse's toothless gun-runner serves little purpose, the Israeli girl soldier is an odd character to bring in for such an extended period, and the zombie pyramid at the Jerusalem wall makes no sense given the number of helicopter gunships circling the area - surely they would at least have raised the alarm? The absence of bad language was very welcome, and the 3D was fine.