When the Zombie Apocalypse breaks out, former UN investigator, Garry Lane (Brad Pitt), is called in to work with a team tracking down patient zero in hopes of finding a cure.
For once the apocalypse feels like a world event, rather than being contained to the US (or worse, DC / New York), sure summer blockbusters usually give us a shot of Big Ben being blown up, or the Great Pyramid being hit by a tidal wave, but these are always little more than nods, and feel more like token efforts, rather than real evidence of a world issue - not so in WWZ, in which Pitt actually travels to a handful of countries and has scree time talking with locals, who in turn are valid parts of the movie (and fighting zombies, of course).
Not only is this global portrayal unusual for summer 'event movies', it's unusual for Zombie movies too, which are usually confined to one location.
The zombies are the fast type (actually incredibly athletic; these fuckers can jump too), and I don't usually go a bundle on fast zombies, but here it's forgivable. Slow, shambling zombies that make up for the lack of speed by simply outnumbering you make for great personal horror, looming down on a small group trapped in a farmhouse or shopping centre, but as a global threat, not-so-much. Zombie movies tend to pick up with the apocalypse in full swing (or happening elsewhere) for a reason; it's hard to imagine a horde of Romero Zombies (even a large horde) taking down an entire city, or even a military base.
The reanimation sequences are great too, with the deceased buckling and contorting, before finally sprinting to their feet.
As well as being more global than your average apocalyptic blockbuster, it's also a site more intelligent, with Pitt and crew tracking the path of the Virus, and learning how it's mutated. It's still very much Hollywood science, but it's better than sending oil riggers to plant a nuke on an asteroid.
The main fault is that something is mentioned quite early on, which is so obviously key to finding a cure that it's annoying that no one picked up on it, although if they had it would have been a short movie, it's never the less annoying when it happens the 2nd time and is noticed, and the implication realised, instantly.
Blockbuster, fast zombies, Brad Pitt... I should have hated this one; but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Fun fact: the movie features Peter Capaldi as a World Heath Organisation doctor - he isn't named, and is credited as "W.H.O. doctor". A few months after this was realised he was, of course, cast as the new incarnation of The Doctor - the never-named hero of BBC hit, Doctor Who.
I loved this movie. I'm a lover of the fast zombies. I find them much more frightening. You're right about the answer to it all being much too easy though.
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