"World War Z is certainly an enjoyable film and far superior as a zombie movie to anything that's come out in recent years"

Like a ginger kid on the playground whose name rhymes with something rude, World War Z was in for a rough ride from the start. Before the film was even finished, rumours of production set backs, reshoots and financial difficulties had spread like the viral infection the movie was depicting. On top of this WWZ is based on a novel which is always risky territory for a movie adaptation and when details surrounding the plot  emerged and revealed the film would follow a very different path to the book, well obviously fans weren't too happy about this.

So right from the get go WWZ looked as though it was fighting a losing battle, however, despite all the early reviews which blasted the film for being an over priced mess.. I can quite honestly say World War Z isn't a terrible movie, in fact It's actually quite entertaining! It's by no means a perfect film but by and large the end result is a well paced, well executed disaster film which shows no signs of its fabled troubled shoot. Even the sceptics may even find themselves enjoying the movie, but of course they probably wouldn't admit it!

First off though, it's great to see zombies back on the big screen, and when I say zombies I mean..zombies, scary, angry, terrifying zombies and hoards of them at that ..not cuddly zombies who listen to Bob Dylan records and have internal monologues about how awkward they are around girls *cough* Warm Bodies. Instead what we have here is a fresh look at the zombie genre from director Marc Forster who presents audiences with zombies on a global level.
We're used to seeing zombies in quite contained locations, a mall or a pub etc but in WWZ, they move in the thousands, tidal waves of the undead crashing against the rock of civilisation.

World War Z throws you straight into the action, one minute Brad Pitt and his family are playing a game of 20 questions in the traffic.. the next they're thrown smack bang into the middle of a zombie apocalypse which literally comes out of nowhere. It's frightening, it's realistic, and you barely have any time to breathe because, well it's a zombie invasion! Luckily Gerry (Pitt) was a pretty big deal back in the day, so he's got a lot of friends in high places, namely friends who can heli-vac him to safety, which is always handy! Once his family set up camp on an aircraft carrier, he's immediately tasked with the job of finding out what's going on, where this infection came from and how they can stop it. And so he's whisked off on one hell of a trip advisor package visiting various different countries and cities around the world, moving from one big zombie set piece to the next.

This is where the film falls into familiar narrative territory, but where lesser films would make a complete hash of this repetitive format, WWZ's zombie set pieces are genuinely nail baiting, particularly when he stops off in the capital of Jerusalem whose government had the forethought to build a massive wall around the city. Without ruining too much of the story, needless to say the wall wasn't as completely zombie proof as they first thought and prompts a butt clenchingly tense sequence as Brad attempts to flee the city with flesh eaters hot on his tail!

It's always fun when the UK gets a mention in big Hollywood films (like Croydon getting a shout out in Iron Man 3!), but WWZ goes one step further and makes Wales a central location for the films third act. This final act is definitely the most substantial in terms of engaging storyline as we work closer and closer towards a potential solution.

Throughout the film though, It's hard not to fall prey to the intimidatingly good looks of Brad Pitt and this may be a potential issue with the film, on the one hand he is without a doubt one of cinemas best leading men but in a film such as WWZ, it often removes you from the action on screen because you kind of know he's going to be ok, its Brad Pitt for godsake..maybe he's just a bit too A-list for this kind of film?

Don't be put off by the nay sayers though however, World War Z is certainly an enjoyable film and far superior as a zombie movie to anything that's come out in recent years but perhaps one of its key differences is its downfall.. it's just too sprawling and global and consequently hard to invest real emotion into any of the characters.