By: Addison Wylie

A catastrophic zombie outbreak occurs and its up to a former member of the UN to protect his family, re-team with past coworkers and zealous fighters, and travel to different destinations in order to figure out the origin of this deadly attack and figure out a way to an end to the madness.  Somewhere in there he takes a nap.

Brad Pitt plays the good doing husband in World War Z and appears to have figured out all sorts of tricks by being a part of the UN.  Marc Forster’s film represents Pitt as unstoppable and brilliant.  If he was any more valiant, he may as well be invulnerable.  Movie goers who have seen World War Z will more so pick up on that ribbing.

But, all kidding aside, I actually really liked World War Z.  It’s a movie that is riveting from start to finish offering a breath of fresh air to a genre niche that was needing a kick in the pants.

Forster incorporates action and horror incredibly well.  The scenes featuring Pitt fleeing from hordes of zombies will have you breathing heavily and your heart beating out of your chest.  Other tense sequences where Pitt and either his family or personnel are trying to go unseen from the infected are nerve wracking and scary.  The film does a great job with carrying those echoing undead moans through dank corridors.

At first, the rubbery zombie design is hard to muster.  Though the transformation from human to a member of the running dead is terrifying with spastic twitches and a full personality cleansing, the bodies seem to fly and bounce too often.  But as World War Z rolls along, these mannerisms add to the suspenseful and unpredictable nature of the chase scenes.

An intense, well executed chase through Jerusalem shows gaggles of slobbering, hungry creatures coming out from all corners as the never ending swarm stumble over each other.  Occasionally, the audience sees close-ups of these grotesque zombies and the quick glimpses we see are enough to give us nightmares.

World War Z marks the first time in a while where a film fittingly – and chillingly – illustrates what an attack of this kind would feel like if it was to globe trot.  We realize a pandemic like this one is far from happening, but the movie is able to convince us otherwise.  The process of trying to find answers as help is rapidly being assembled feels very real – even if Pitt is able to travel to each destination in the blink of an eye.

World War Z will have you hooked from the opening scene.  It’s a zombie movie with brains.  Does that mean if a worldwide zombie attack were to break out, would the undead start chomping on copies of Marc Forster’s movie?