Finally broke down and saw this high budget zombie film

Rating: 8/10 (12 July 2013)

It took me awhile to finally go and view this movie. I had gone back and forth on rather or not I would see it during the past few weeks. At first, I was going to see it as I like zombie films and this was one with a huge budget. However, the fact it starred Brad Pitt made me iffy (not a big Brad Pitt fan). Then I saw some trailers and I was a bit more excited, until I saw the film was rated PG-13. At that point it was a no go as I just thought a zombie film should be R. After seeing several people on Facebook say they enjoyed the film I decided I would see it and it turned out to be a rather good zombie film. Granted, I still say it would have been better rated R as I could tell by the editing that there will be an unrated DVD version.
The story has a man and his family having breakfast and going about their daily routine. My thinking at this point was that the film was going to take a while to get going. However, the family is not in the car for too long before explosions begin to occur within the city and people are fleeing in a panic. Finally, people begin attacking other people and the zombie outbreak has begun! It is up to Gerry (Pitt's character) to help a man try to discover what is the source of this horrid outbreak, however things do not proceed as planned. Gerry goes to South Korea, Israel and what I believe was Germany in the hopes of finding a source of the outbreak or at least some way to combat it.
The effects are pretty good, once again I think they should have just released the film with an R rating. My guess is though with such a huge budget they decided that they needed as many people as possible going so that is why they ended up demanding cutting the film so it would be PG-13. Pitt does okay and the movie as a whole does a great job creating tension. For the next couple of weeks, every time I hear a door slam or something squeak I will remember this film. The film had more action than I was led to believe it was going to have, but I do have to say the scenes in Israel are the best as the zombies find very creative ways to get to their prey!
So I did enjoy this film a good deal. It was nice to see something at the movies that was not a sequel or remake. The film throws you into the action quickly as it does not linger long on Gerry's home life. Near the end it turns almost into a stealth movie as there is a lot of sneaking around. It ends in a way that suggests there could be a sequel at a later date as things are far from resolved. If so, I will probably see it as well.