Reviews & Ratings for
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128 out of 203 people found the following review useful:

Fast, scary and much better than expected!

Author: AdventureWolf from Australia
20 June 2013

I was dubious! The rating, the early reviews, my love of gory George Romero movies had all led me to deciding not to see this. But, my wife wanted to go... Well, two breathless hours later I turned to her, big grin on my face and had to state "That was awesome!" Yes, I can see why people don't like it. It is very different to the traditional zombie movie, and very different to the book. But you know what, who cares - it's not a traditional zombie movie, or the book - it's different. So suck it it up whiners and enjoy this for what it is! (And I'm a huge fan of all Max Brooks zombie books.) The movie begins with a short intro to the main character and his family (it was enough, it told me all I needed to know) before launching into a fantastic, break neck sequence that establishes the pace for most of the rest of the movie. It's violent, visceral and shocking without any reliance in gore. The tension is racked up (especially in the escape from the apartment block sequence) with a series of spectacular set pieces (the walls of Jerusalem scene is brilliant) and things get better and bigger until the film slows the pace for the final reel with a slow burning, smaller scale sequence set in a WHO research lab in the UK. It's an unusual choice to end a movie with the smallest set piece, but it worked well for me as it was in line with Gerry's quest and the (stated in the movie) fact that the answer is often so small it gets overlooked. The gravity of the decisions Gerry has to make here are greater than any previously in the movie (where mostly he just has to run like hell!) and it's that that makes this such a powerful set piece to end the movie. I learnt several things from this movie 1) to let go of my preconceptions about what a zombie film should be, 2) that a low rating doesn't mean its for kids - I have two sons and despite the lack of gore I certainly wouldn't let then see this. Its very intense and that (not the gore) is what would scare them. 3) to go with the flow - I did here and was swept along for a rapid fire 2 hour thrill ride that was a hell of a lot of fun. I for one will be getting this on blu ray and I'll be first in line for any sequel. But I will admit, an undated version would be very welcome!

127 out of 208 people found the following review useful:

Light, family friendly and internationally marketable.

Author: fca182 from United States
19 June 2013

Oh, Hollywood. You saw the zombie apocalypse coming didn't you? Not a literal apocalypse of course, just 16 dozen different zombie books, graphic novels, games and TV shows taking over the world like the plague, and you just had to have your piece of the pie, didn't you?

World War Z is based on the 2006 novel by Max Brooks. The novel garnered some quite positive reviews, praised for its international and political scope. It also caught the eye of producer and star Brad Pitt, who after a long struggle with studios, directors, producers and other Hollywood zombies, managed to put together a half decent movie with director Marc Forster.

Half decent? Well, WWZ certainly isn't a bad movie. You've got the long-time Oscar-deserving Pitt playing Gerry Lane, a likable, good-looking family man who retired as a UN investigator to spend more time around his wife and daughters. This is all about to change obviously, because after the now seemingly mandatory news-footage-montage introduction, Gerry is called back by the UN in exchange for his family's safety on their big boat.

It sounds good enough, but the problem is that WWZ's political/international context is nowhere to be found so we're left pretty much to 28 Days Later with blockbuster pretentiousness. Sure, Gerry travels around the world and makes a few long distance phone calls, but there's never anything remotely compelling enough to warrant his travels and whenever the plot does manage to come close to something it quickly sets it aside in the interest of keeping this summer blockbuster light, family friendly and internationally marketable.

After Quantum of Solace there was much uncertainty about Forster's ability to direct action and after WWZ, guess what? There still is. Granted, it's never boring, but when the other elements that should've made the film aren't there it should be more than "never boring". Paramount's marketing certainly didn't help; if you've seen the trailers then you've seen the whole plot and LITERALLY every single action set piece, in chronological order too. You know when you see a trailer and think "they put all the good parts in"? Well, this time they put the whole movie in. The more hardcore genre fans might also want to look elsewhere if they're seeking gory zombie kills; there isn't much of that either as its PG-13 rating might suggest.

Brad Pitt is really the film's only strength. Much like Tom Cruise, Brad's got enough talent to singlehandedly pull you through a not-so-great movie without you hating him for it. And at almost age 50 you can't really blame him for wanting to star in his own big blockbuster franchise for the first time in his career when he could've played any superhero he wanted years ago. "Franchise" of course, if permitted by the audience, because this is one movie that desperately wants to have sequels.

213 out of 387 people found the following review useful:

5/10. Sorry folks, It's pretty pants. And I REALLY wanted it to be good.

Author: martin-807-452270 from United Kingdom
9 June 2013

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

SPOILER ALERT. SPOILER ALERT! You have been warned.

The Premiere -

I was at the London World Premiere last week, and Interestingly there was clearly tension between Mark (Director) and Brad Pitt. I would have thought a director of this size movie would be able to make a speech. But no. Reading from cards he fumbled over his words, got his actors names seriously wrong in front of 1000 people and was clearly very very nervous. Which is odd because any director should be excited or proud to be presenting their work to the world!

Brad Pitt in interview said they chose Mark as he was really good at the little emotional moments between characters. Well they mush have cut those bits out.

The movie -

A zombie film with no blood? I've no idea what the zombies were doing as we never see them kill anyone! They just run around a lot, far too fast for a 'human being'. No decapitated zombies, and a incredibly poor script that could have been knocked together in an evening.

Speaking to actors who worked on the film they told me a lot of the dialogue was improvised. And it shows. Good dialogue is written. It is very hard for an actor to come up with great dialogue on set with crew around, lights, explosions, gun fire and a budget and schedule pressing down on you - that is what rehearsals and, dare I say, a screenwriter are for.

I just don't think Mark Forster (Quantum of Bollox) knows how to direct. No emotional connection to any of the characters. No big climax at the end and the least threatening Zombie in the history of movies. Click click click.

A tedious V/O from Brad at the end, about "only just the beginning, of the war, YAWN..." We have heard this a hundred times.

There was some truly awful acting, characters that appear and go in a scene, that do nothing, and flimsy science that is just insulting to anyone who can actually think.

The only good bit was the Zombie as Ants scene, but it would have been hugely improved if a zombie with a giant leaf walked past in the background.

The audience laughed at several moment, that I don't believe the director even realised were gags!

Brad doesn't even really do any acting. He does a bit of running around and a fight or two. No great lines, and I don't really believe that he loves his kids and wife so terribly much.

Best thing in it was - Daniella Kertesz, but her scenes are clearly cut to bits, unlike her hand, which just seems to be fine after a couple of gin and tonics. I'll have what she's having!

And leaning suitcases against a curtain? Seriously. That was really bad.

The film could have been saved in the Edit - with some clever re-positioning of the major scenes, to get the structure right, but having seen Brad and Mark together, they had clearly fallen out of love with the movie.

Nothing here we haven't seen in 28 Days Later, or any other zombie film, or even The War of the World that was written 100 years ago.

At the end the applause was half hearted and everyone got up and left super fast.

The aftermath -

Please GOD can we stop giving bad directors a second, and in this case 10th chance. This film made me angry that a studio can waste so much money on what was a mediocre idea even at the beginning, and gave it to a director who has a proved track record of not being able to fix a bad script, or direct action.

The budget on this would keep an independent film maker in business for the next 400 years - or if we put that in a real time scale - all the way back to Elizabeth the 1st.

Frustrating.

Nothing to see here ladies and gentlemen, move on.

53 out of 76 people found the following review useful:

A Very Puzzling Missed Opportunity

Author: foster-ni from United States
24 June 2013

The story of how World War Z was made is a lot more harrowing and suspenseful than the film itself. After going way over-budget and enduing a complete revision and reshoot of the final act, WWZ wasn't exactly set up for success. Ultimately the movie is completely forgettable and uneven, but not offensively bad or objectively terrible in any sense. What struck me about it was how much of a wasted opportunity it was, given how interesting and entertaining the source material is.

Having read the book World War Z, I could tell from the trailers for this movie that it wouldn't exactly be a faithful adaptation. I thought that the most interesting aspects of the book were its exploration of how the Zombie plague affected social and political structures across the world. Anything like that is completely ignored in the film, but I can at least understand how the filmmakers thought that those aspects wouldn't work in a single feature length movie. What I can't understand is how the filmmakers seemingly ignored the book's most obviously cinematic content. The book features a lot of setpiece action scenes, and to be fair, many of these involve world cities falling to zombie infestation and the movie does do enough to cover this. However, the book's immense battle scenes - the meat of the titular Zombie War, such as the Battle of Yonkers, nuclear war between Pakistan and Iran, Chinese civil war and massive formation combat against zombies - are completely absent. I was very surprised that they did not cover these, especially the Yonkers scene, because they would obviously fit so well into a film and the script, even as it is now, could easily be tweaked to include or at least mention them. The action that did make it into this film is very unsatisfying and obscure thanks to the restrictions of the PG-13 rating, and the narrative around is not engaging enough to really get me invested in it.

I was also surprised at how cheap this movie looked. This film cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, but it's hard to see where it all went on the screen. Swarms of zombies look very fake and nonthreatening, and in some cases individual zombies are computer animated, which gave me bad flashbacks to I Am Legend's awful CGI overload. Aside from the opening scenes in Philadelphia and the middle act in Jerusalem, there are no big outdoor sets. A South Korean airbase is portrayed as a series of dark rooms; too much of the movie takes place in an airline seat; there is a lot of sitting around inside of the aircraft carrier, etc. The sense of scale is very inconsistent, and this is accentuated in the bizarre final act, which was obviously the focus of the infamous reshoots as it feels like a completely separate movie. I consider myself a patient viewer, but this very long and dull scene started to bring me down after a while, and my less patient viewing audience eventually fell completely out of sync with the film and began to make fun of it at every opportunity - not really a fair criticism of the film, but it's a real issue when it can't hold an audience's attention. The final act does actually have an interesting idea at its heart, albeit one that completely doesn't connect with anything in the book, but I just didn't think it was a well executed concept. The very different style and tone of these scenes makes it feel like a completely different movie.

Again, while there was nothing all that terrible about WWZ, I didn't think it was anything to get excited about. In other words, a perfect 5/10 movie. I wish they were more aware of the source material's potential because without the best and most cinematic aspects of the book, WWZ (the film)and WWZ (the book) only share a title and the central premise of a zombie plague, which is not an original idea in itself.

53 out of 82 people found the following review useful:

A very Mixed Bag

Author: Jezzascmezza from Australia
21 June 2013

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Pros:

- Epic scope: This is without a doubt the biggest zombie movie ever made. The exact budget of the film is unknown, but due to its prolonged and troubled production some have estimated the movie cost as much as 250 million dollars to make. And the film-makers really make sure you're aware of how expensive the movie would've been to make, with a number of staggering shots featuring thousands and thousands of zombies swarming all over each other. The movie earns its title, given the fact that it is truly a zombie movie on a global scale.

- Brad Pitt: He's very good in this movie, and is definitely one of the best things about the film. He makes for a compelling and likable hero who has to rely more on his intelligence than physical power. He's no superhero in this film, and his vulnerability and "everyday-man" nature keeps him relatable and likable.

- Action scenes: As mentioned before, there's a ton of zombies in this movie. And yes, a lot of them are CGI, which I personally don't have a problem with because there were so many it's unlikely they could've done a lot of these scenes with actual extras portraying the zombies. The hordes of zombies allow for some truly spectacular action scenes on a large scale, all of which I'd rather not talk about in too much detail, because the zombie/action scenes are really the best part of the film, so it's definitely best not to ruin the scenes by giving you too much of an idea of what to expect

- Use of the word "zombie": This didn't necessarily make the film better, but it was just interesting to see the word "zombie" used frequently by the film's characters. The word "zombie" has been treated for so long as a clichéd term in zombie films that it's now kind of refreshing to see it used so honestly and openly in a serious zombie film.

Cons:

- Lack of gore: Now don't get me wrong, I don't need blood and guts in every single movie I watch. But with zombie films, gory violence is a necessity. You need to see zombies getting ripped apart to emphasise how they are literally the "living dead," and you need to see humans die graphic deaths to reinforce how much of a threat the zombies can be. But this film wants to appeal to pretty much anyone aged 10 and up so Brad Pitt and friends can get more money, so of course we get very little blood, plus no on-screen guts, severed limbs, or exploding heads.

- Shaky cam: This kind of ties in with the lack of gore; it's like the cameraman is shying away from the more graphic moments (it's The Hunger Games all over again). The shaky cam's only really noticeable in the film's first half hour though, while the zombie outbreak is just beginning, so it's not a huge problem. Still a little bothersome though.

- Unfulfilling ending: This movie does end in an abrupt fashion, and kind of left me wanting more. It ends very suddenly, and I kind of thought to myself- "really? That's it?" The biggest action scene in the movie occurs about halfway through the film, and the final zombie confrontation was fairly quiet and low-key, which just felt a bit off to me. That being said, the jarringly sudden ending could be seen as a good thing, as it demonstrated that the movie went by fairly quickly. It's just under two hours long, but the final scene honestly felt as though the film was at about the 80-minute mark. But still, the ending was a little unsatisfying, so I ultimately see the ending as a con.

- Unintentionally funny zombies: Zombies can be funny, and zombie movies can be part-comedy and still be great zombie movies. Shaun of the Dead and ZombieLand are both very funny movies that also manage to be pretty good legitimate zombie films (they don't exclusively poke fun at the zombie genre). George A. Romero worked some great satire into 1978′s Dawn of the Dead, by comparing the zombies in the film's mall to the mindless, braindead consumers who inhabited the mall pre-zombie apocalypse. World War Z didn't feel like it was meant to have much comedy in it with its serious tone and gritty aesthetic, yet at times I found myself laughing at the way the film's zombies expressed exaggerated twitchy movements, and the manner in which more than a few of them chattered their teeth repeatedly in a cartoonish manner.

- Slight lack of tension: The movie lacks some much needed suspense because it's basically Brad Pitt saving the world himself. Maybe if Pitt's character had a few allies forming like a "rag-tag squad" or something, and they went around battling zombies as a group, it would've made things more intense and involving, as a few of them would inevitably die along the way. I don't know, a few more well-developed side characters would've gone quite a long way in making me more invested in the film's events.

So there's my thoughts on this film. It's a mixed bag, but ultimately I'd recommend it. It's worth seeing at the cinema just for those spectacular action scenes, and simply so you can see the sheer scale of the biggest budgeted zombie film of all time. It's flawed as hell though, so go in with moderate expectations. It could be a whole lot better, but ultimately the film's still pretty decent, and a good one to experience on the big screen. It's certainly a fine summer blockbuster, but it's unlikely that the film will ever achieve a "classic status."

83 out of 144 people found the following review useful:

A zombie film that lacks bite

Author: Tyferra
23 June 2013

It seems unfair to criticise the film for not being like its source material given that it obviously didn't try to be but I'm going to start by bringing that up anyway. The book had so many sequences that could have been turned into amazing set-pieces in a film and yet not one of them were used. The book also had some neat ideas about how a global outbreak and response play out. What might work? What would catastrophically fail? What would the cost be? Not one of these ideas were explored or even alluded to and there seems absolutely no reason why this was the case.

It might have been okay to abandon these ideas if the film had some ideas of its own to explore or at least play out but it doesn't. Instead we follow Brad Pitt and Brad Pitt's baggage through a few set-pieces as he first escapes from and then looks into an outbreak of zombies. There's little else to say about it than that.

The first major problem came down to the zombies themselves. For a zombie film to get that right is critical and World War Z stumbled pretty badly here. The physical appearance of the zombies is a clear problem. Given the film's penchant for shying away from blood and gore to keep its rating audience-friendly, the only things that separates these zombies from regular people are milky eyes, grey skin, and a tendency to bare and snap their teeth. They're not the bloodthirsty creatures at various stages of decay and ruin that feature in most zombie films. This is generally fine in close-ups but at a distance it's impossible to tell the zombies apart from regular people. And when most of your action scenes involve panicking people running away from what are allegedly zombies, having them pretty much indistinct from each other means you never get much of an inclination about the level of the threat or even what's going on.

A possible solution would have been for the film to opt for the shambling moaning Romero-esque zombies of the book. Instead of running and tackling, having a slowly ever-advancing tide of danger would have given turned the zombies into something to be feared rather than something to try and spot in a crowd.

But even later when the film displays zombies in their 'docile' state its shown how little the film-makers understand how zombies are supposed to work. The jerking around and screeches were meant to be threatening and they are anything but. They are borderline slapstick and certainly comical judging by the outbreaks of laughter in the audience at my screening. They clicked their teeth together as if they enjoyed the sound. They repeatedly hit their heads against the wall in a way that was meant to seem deranged but just came across as silly. They spun and jerked around leading to a hilarious sequence of Pitt and two others essentially playing "Red Light/Green Light" with a snarling zombie. Nothing about these zombies seemed to work as intended.

The second major problem came down to the complete lack of weight or tension. Brad Pitt isn't the type of actor anyone expects to be in danger, at least not when he's in an action film, so already there's the knowledge that he's fairly safe. But added to that, his character is a practically invulnerable bad-ass UN investigator whose field knowledge and ingenuity makes him able to adapt to any situation. His 'baggage', as I referred to them earlier, is played at first by his wife and two daughters as well as an orphan boy - far too cute to ever come into real harm in a film like this. The baggage is then played by a doctor and a team of soldiers who are so bereft of personality and character that there is no reason to care about them. He then teams up with a young Israeli soldier who is the closest person aside from Pitt to qualify to be called a character but unfortunately she doesn't seem to serve any purpose. His final baggage comes in the form of a team of WHO doctors. I won't say anything about them aside from pointing out that all four are named in the credits as "W.H.O. Doctor" despite being a key part of around a quarter of the film.

Though I wouldn't recommend the film, to its credit it managed to attain a level of being entertaining and it never embarrassed itself, (despite a squeamish bit of product placement.) It was clearly let down by a few core problems and while certainly not a good film I'd feel a bit mean if I were to label it 'bad'. I'm disappointed that it painted itself as a zombie film for zombie fans while clearly being a toothless blockbuster to appeal to a broader audience, (however understandable that move may be from a film studio's perspective given the production problems and cost blow-out.) For this reason maybe the film tripped up and fell flat on its face but as it dragged itself to the finish line I'm willing to applaud it for that at least.

I suppose all I can do it sit here and try to imagine what might have been...

32 out of 47 people found the following review useful:

Zombie blockbuster for a generic audience

Author: cgf376 from United States
21 June 2013

I haven't read the book so I'm not coming from viewing this as an adaptation but rather a stand-alone film. (From what I've heard it's pretty far from the original source anyway.) First off, a zombie film watered-down and free from blood and gore? That idea alone would lose a big slice (pun-intended) of hardcore fans in the audience. How does it hold your attention then? By stringing you along on the edge with tension and suspense from beginning to end. It does a pretty good job of maintaining this grip even without the standard horror elements of slasher flicks.

Brad Pitt easily slips into the role of a family man desperate to keep his family safe. It's not difficult to root for him and share in his urgency. His charm certainly makes up for and saves the movie from its flaws (and there are many!) not the least of which are its gaping plot holes and loose direction.

The audience in the theater seemed to have fun screaming along and allowing themselves to be entertained and toyed with. There are a handful of funny scenes (whether intentional or not). If you're willing to quit analyzing the movie like a critic, you'll probably start enjoying it.

After all, when did a zombie movie ever have to be "BELIEVABLE"?

41 out of 65 people found the following review useful:

This is not a movie, it is a special demo with no plot

Author: burkay-ozturk from Chicago, USA
23 June 2013

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The special effects were impressive, I will give you that. However, the rest wasn't. The 2 hour experience felt like watching titanic sink, in real time. Here is a list of the things that went wrong:

1. PG13 rating: The director and producers wanted to make this movie family friendly, so they took away all the gore, death and decay that makes the zombie genre what it is. This made the zombies totally not scary and even on occasions towards the end, just plain laughable.

2. Senseless plot: The UN sends a small team to investigate the beginning of the outbreak. They have a neurologist on the team, who incidentally cant stop using cheesy metaphors about mother nature. Why can't they send multiple teams, with more than one expert on each? After all it is clearly a high risk mission, casualties must be expected. After the neurologist dies right after his pretentious speech, it is clear that the whole thing was an excuse to put Brad Pitt in a dangerous situation so that we will feel tension. We still didn't because, see 3.

3. Bad character development: None of the characters in the movie had any depth. As a result we didn't care if they lived or died. Pitt's family was just the detestable suburban family, who apparently does nothing but turn money into feces. Their marriage and children felt so plastic and ready-made that I personally would not have felt a thing if Pitt was torn apart by zombies in front of his family. Well, actually that might have improved this movie, alas it couldn't have happened because of 1.

4. The ending sequence: Just as we think that the plot cannot get worse and we make peace with the idea of enjoying the special effects, the movie takes another down turn in the last 40 minutes or so. The special effects disappear and we find Pitt and his sidekick in a W.H.O. research facility playing hide and seek with zombies. There is no suspense because the ending is announced basically in the first 5 minutes of this sequence, Pitt will go into the zombie infested part of the building, get some disease samples and bring them back. They will use one of the samples to infect themselves and see if zombies will lose their appetite. They do, and we win, with another pretentious speech about how it is not the end but just the beginning. Yawn.

5. Plot holes:

a) Zombies can diagnose a terminal illness just by looking at someone and for some reason, they avoid that person. This doesn't make any sense at any level. First, even a doctor with years of medical training can't do that without extensive testing. How can a mindless zombie, who cant figure out how to unbuckle her seat belt, do it just after a glance by the corner of her eye? Second, why the hell would zombies avoid a sick person? There is no reason. After all, the virus, or whatever that is causing the outbreak is not harmed by any other disease. The W.H.O. scientists said so themselves.

b) The W.H.O. facility is in Wales, Britain. Among the weapons they have in their arsenal is a baseball bat. Does the director even know where Wales is? Does anyone, one soul in Wales, own a baseball bat? Was that so difficult to make it a cricket bat? Come on now, I think that the director is a bit of a thickie but I can't believe that no one who looked at this movie pre-release had seen Shaun of the Dead. And to add insult to injury, the soldier girl with one hand picks the baseball bat. This scene alone is enough to prove that the director of the movie is blind from birth, because anyone who had at least one functioning eye at any point in his life and used it to glance at a baseball bat would have immediately realized that it is a two-handed weapon. How could a special forces soldier could not recognize it as such and not pick the crowbar?

c) The cellphone battery: In one scene, the cellphone's battery is declared dead. In a later scene, it is working again. Really?

d) When they decide to recover the disease samples, they give Pitt no briefing about which containers contain what. But apparently, at least one container is full of deadly stuff, which would kill him immediately. Why? Why? OMG, why? The security cameras show the room clearly. All they need to do is to seat Pitt and the soldier girl in front of one of the displays and show them where the goodies are before sending them in.

e) Pitt has no special combat, first aid or survival training. He apparently learned all that stuff on the field, and he is not a scientist either. Finally, he doesn't have experience as a commanding officer. So, why would he, instead of literally thousands of military people who were purpose-trained for such a mission, is chosen to lead the mission? It doesn't make any sense. It would have made a lot of sense if his UN friend said something like "Look, I convinced these people that you are the best man to lead this mission though we both know that you aren't. You are just a guy who spent ten years handing out blankets to African countries. But I had to do it to save your family, alright? They would have never let you on the ship otherwise and you would have died in Philly." That would have not only sealed this plot hole, but also would have given Pitt's character a tragic and desperate quality, which would have helped us care about him. But the mindless zombies who made this movie missed this chance too.

34 out of 52 people found the following review useful:

If you've seen the trailer you've seen the movie

Author: joshuabettendorf from United States
25 June 2013

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I've listed that this review contains spoilers, but I haven't included anything that the trailer hasn't already given away.

And the that's my main problem with "World War Z" The Trailer. If you've seen the trailer you've seen the movie. It literally shows everything that happens in the movie completely destroying any suspense that might have been had. "World War Z" isn't a conventional movie with a flowing plot line that builds to a dramatic conclusion. It's more like a bunch of individual parts laid out in a not so very straight line, and strung together loosely by a single character. I don't have much of a problem with that, or the facts the Zombies aren't of the undead kind, slow moving kind like they were in the source novel. But rather the rabid, sprinting, quick turning kind like in "28 days later" Brad Pit is good and takes the roll seriously. The CGi is top notch, and the movie is well made. The problem I had is that I new exactly what was going to happen, before it happened, because they showed it in the stupid trailer. Literally, every single cool action shot that's in the movie they showed in the trailer. Every single plot point. Even the dialog scenes. I knew the jest of what was going to be said because they showed the important parts in the trailer! I kept waiting for the extended version but it never came. There's no suspense. (I know there's Zombies on the plane and that Brad Pitt blows a hole in the side sucking them all out, crashing the plane, because they show it in the trailer!) That's just one example of a long list of scenes that you totally know what's fixing to happen because, well... You've seen it already. This is one movie I wish I could have gone in completely blank. Not having read the book, not having seen the trailer, and I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

26 out of 37 people found the following review useful:

Just Another Zombie Movie

Author: david-sarkies from Australia
25 June 2013

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I'm not sure why I actually went and saw this movie since I am not really a big fan of zombie movies, with the exception of 28 Days Later of course. I guess it was because Brad Pitt played the lead role and I generally like anything that Brad Pitt is in, and though he does his usually good job as an actor in this film, in the end this film is nothing more than a zombie movie. It is based on a book (which might actually be an interesting read since in the book the zombies are more in the background, much like 28 Days Later) but we all know what people generally think about movies based on books, and that is that the book is generally always better.

I could tell you a bit more about this film, but it is pretty obvious what it is about – the zombie apocalypse. Basically a disease that kills humans and turns them into zombies breaks out and brings the world to the brink of ruin, and Brad Pitt, a ex-United Nations investigator, is called back to work to try to find out what is going on. Basically the film focuses mostly on his investigation into this pandemic and the results of his investigation. Like 28 Days Later, the movie does not end with the destruction of all of the zombies, but rather it is more like the beginning of the end of the catastrophe. In a way the world has already been destroyed, but humanity has (as usual) found a way of bringing an end to the catastrophe and pulling themselves out of the ashes.

This is a common theme that we seem to see through these numerous styles of movies, and that is how we, humanity, are able to survive against ridiculous odds. Bring on the apocalypse and somehow we humans will be able to survive and actually once again thrive against this monumentous threat that we face. To me I think it, in many cases, is wishful thinking, and I'm not even a fundamentalist Christian. What ever I think of the end times or the apocalypse, I feel that the idea that humanity can survive on its own without any extra-ordinary power is not only wishful thinking, but another ploy of a small group of radical humanists who want to give us a reason to throw away our simple faith.

The problem with this argument is though is because we are still here and we have managed to survive. If this idea was wrong then I would not be sitting here writing this, however have we ever face such a threat that had the potential of wiping us all out? I would potentially say no. Okay, there may have been the Black Plague, but not everybody was affected. There may have been World War II, or even the Cold War, but we managed to restrain ourselves. It is not a question of us hanging on by the skin of our teeth, but rather than we are smart enough not to push us to the brink of destruction, or beyond. As for pandemics, there are always going to be those of us who are naturally resistant.

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