A zombie infection sends the world into chaos, and UN special investigator Brad Pitt comes out of retirement to track down the source of the infection. He has to leave behind his wife (the thoroughly ordinary Mireille Enos) and two daughters, who were the reason for him retiring in the first place.
Forgetting that its dopey title doesn’t really work in countries that don’t speak ‘murrican, that’s small potatoes, really. What really worried me going into this 2013 film from Marc Forster (“Monster’s Ball”, “Stranger Than Fiction”) was that in addition to being all zombie’d out, I didn’t think you could make a good zombie film without any overt gore or violence. At least, all the good ones I’ve seen certainly were more violent and graphic than this. Turns out this one’s surprisingly interesting and effective. I’m as shocked as you are. Yes there’s some very convenient things going on in the second half, and no this isn’t “Dawn of the Dead”, but this is still a strong and effective film that outclasses George Romero’s more recent zombie films, that’s for sure. The film’s theory for dealing with the zombies is insane, but interesting and truly original. You wonder why it hasn’t been thought of before, crazy as it is.
Brad Pitt is an uneven actor, but this is one of his best performances, along with “The Assassination of Jesse James”, “Kalifornia”, and to an extent “Se7en”. He’s instantly likeable here as the dad and husband, though for the most of it he’s separated from his family. It’s probably the most down-to-earth the actor has ever been on screen.
Forster deserves credit for not messing around and getting right on with the show, in exciting and surprisingly scary fashion. The opening 20 minutes are exciting and always on the move, without forgetting to set things up. It’s quite an unnerving film, especially the chaotic opening section. It’s a bit of a shame Forster and cinematographer Ben Seresin (“Unstoppable”) favour shaky-cam, because the scene set on the plane in particular would’ve been an absolute cracker. It’s still pretty good. It’s more of an apocalyptic film than an actual horror film, per se, but tense as hell nonetheless. I may not believe in zombies (and prefer slower zombies than this lot- a matter of personal taste), but I do believe in a plausible decline of western civilisation and all-round civil behaviour. This film depicts the chaos and panic convincingly, no matter the fantastical cause of the decline. That horde of zombies climbing over one another is an incredible visual. Like Spielberg’s excellent and similarly underrated “War of the Worlds”, this is a realistic depiction of something unrealistic, albeit more global than that film seemed.
Based on a novel by Max Brooks (Yep, son of God), the screenplay is by Matthew Michael Carnahan (“Lions For Lambs”, “State of Play”), and J.J. Abrams alumni Drew Goddard (“Cloverfield”, “Cabin in the Woods”) and Damon Lindelof (“Star Trek Into Darkness”, TV’s “Lost”). Those aren’t names one would normally expect to deliver a good zombie movie, and when you consider the film’s tumultuous production history, it comes off surprisingly smoothly, I think. Pretty good score by the reliable Marco Beltrami (“Demolition Man”, “Repo Men”, “Jonah Hex”), too.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Who knew that there were still unexplored nooks and crannies in the subgenre to mine? “Zombieland” excepted, I thought it was all tapped out years ago. A damn fine film and most unexpected. Give it a go, if like me you’ve been apprehensive about seeing it.
