Not what I've expected ...

Rating: 6/10 (16 July 2013)

I don't even know how to review this movie.
First I was mad about how they are taking a book about the psychological effects of such a zombie war (and there was some smarts point in the book, believe me) and transformed it into the next "28 Days Later".
Then I saw the movie. Started well enough, good acting, clichés but well executed ones, a few predictable plot twists (actually, with the exception of one plot point, this may be the most predictable scenario ever written), good special effects and some variety.
This was in the first 30 minutes. Then it started. * Unstable pacing. In some moments you just want to get it over it and it goes on and on and on. In others it ends way too fast. * The action scenes are predictable at least. Ranging from the Navy Seals to regular soldiers, from "28 days later" like scenes to 2012, they are predictable. Nothing WOW here, only well executed. * The movie is too long as it's stretched to be too long. For such a thin plot, it takes about 20 - 30 minutes longer than it should take. BUT wait ... when it finally picks up the pace after a painful 30 minutes (which should have been suspenseful) it ends.
Yes, it ends. And then if from 0 to 1:39 was A to B, the ending is B - C - D - E - F ... you get the point. There were so many cool things that could have been included in the plot directly like the bombing of a football field, the battle of Moscow but no, you will only find them there.
So this movie is a huge disappointment at least from my side. Why? Not because it's another zombie flick. I don't care. I've enjoyed almost all of them. There is nothing better than to see a dark, action oriented movie like Resident Evil. It's a disappointment because it builds tension and it builds it and it builds it and the release sucks.
OK, so they find some kind of vaccine. Guess what? We knew that from the beginning since this was his mission. I wasn't expecting it with everyone dying.
Brad Pitt's acting is good, actually very good. The characters are interesting - his wife, the Mossad girl, the Navy Seal, the smaller boss (general secretary of the UN), etc.
However, it's not as exciting, not even close as in the trailers, it captures little to none of the book (simply detailing the battle for NY would have made for a better script), it's not really dark (I don't know what tone they wanted to strike - because it's neutral, nor dark or optimistic. While the characters are decent, it's hard to get attached to any of them and I'll stop here.
I rarely write long reviews. I rarely write reviews for movies I don't like. But I can't understand how this got a 7.3 plus how it's so different from the trailers.