World War Z starts out as a decent film once you get past that it has barely any basis at all in Max Brooks’ novel of the same name. It’s insulting to license a novel that ambitious and intelligent and turn it into a generic war movie with a horror twist.
Brad Pitt plays a retired UN operative called back into duty when a mysterious ailment causes corpses to rise from the grave and violently attack living humans. Reluctant to accept the reality of zombies, the surviving world forces call on military and medical experts to seek out patient zero and find a cure.
For most of the running time, World War Z is a palatable action/horror film built on the framework of a war movie. The action scenes are serviceable. There are some ambitious concepts being explored, which is honestly the big advantage of the zombie genre. Like vampires and sexuality, zombies are entwined with social commentary by virtue of the greatest stories in the field.