Review of World War Z (2013) by Ola G — 12 Sep 2014

A worldwide zombie outbreak erupts in several metropolitan areas around the world; those bitten by the creatures become zombies themselves. Former UN investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), his wife Karin (Mireille Enos), and their two daughters manage to escape the outbreak in Philadelphia and take shelter with a Hispanic family in Newark, while waiting for special evacuation the next day thanks to Gerry's friend UN Deputy Secretary-General Thierry Umutoni. Their hosts choose not to accompany them when they flee the next day, and are subsequently killed by zombies. Their son, Tommy, manages to escape, and Gerry's family takes him in. They are flown to an offshore U.S. Navy carrier group where Umuntoni is overseeing the remaining worldwide governments' reactions. The scientists there believe they must find the first case of the zombie outbreak, believed to be in South Korea. A team is dispatched to go, and Gerry is coerced into going with them under the threat of having his family sent to a potentially unsafe mainland refugee camp. The team lands at Camp Humphreys, where the surviving soldiers hold back zombie attacks: the zombies are fast and vicious, and once bitten, a person turns within seconds. Gerry learns that a Korean doctor was the first to come down with the rabies-like infection, after being bitten by a soldier he was treating whom local villagers had captured when he tried to attack them. What follows is a perilous trek around the world where Lane must brave horrific dangers and long odds to find answers before human civilization falls...

I know of the book "World War Z", but I have not red it, however I know as well that the book has a completely different storyline than the movie version. Meaning the movie has of course been Hollywoodised to fit the big screen. The book is told from the point of view after the war with a "historical" account of what happened during the war. That would hardly make a very exciting zombie actioneer and adapting a book for the screen is never easy. There´s always something that has to give in. We have seen it many times before, civilization is on the brink of extinction and only a handful of experts can save us and in the end they do. I personally think that "World War Z" adds really nothing new to the genre. It´s fast paced and directed with dynamics, but the CGI is hardly top notch. Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos and the stand out Daniella Kertesz as the Israel Defence Forces soldier Segen does a good job. But, the best zombie movie with a full on realistic feeling/terror is still Danny Boyle´s "28 Days Later" from 2002. "World War Z" is not close in my eyes and to be honest it passed in one eye and out the other.