World War Z: Somewhat of a zombie

World War Z
Starring: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox
Rated: 4.5/10
Do zombie movies need a premise? Apparently not, if you were to go by Brad Pitt’s latest in the line — World War Z. The scary thing here is not the fact that the entire human race is turning into convulsing, carnivorous zombies. What is scarier is that they become zombies with no reasons given or found.
The focus here is more on Pitt and his mission to save the world rather than on the fast growing zombie population devouring the planet. But despite his journey from New York to South Korea to Jerusalem to finally Scotland and back in search of a cure neither he nor anyone else explains convincingly how the ‘zombie’ virus has infected the world population. There is some mumbo jumbo about India being the  originator of this uncontrollable mess, but Pitt and the movie fails to tap the source too!
The scare element, essential to propel any kind of zombie fare on screen, kind of gets eaten up by these crazy beings pretty fast and early into the film. A dishevelled and knotty-haired Pitt leads the way making it apparent he is not just the lead actor but also the film’s co-producer. His family gets short-shrifted not just by the US Navy which sends them packing once Pitt dies or so they are told, but also by the film itself which keeps their interaction with him to the minimum, so emotionalism is at its barest best. On the whole, you can call this one an unexplained story about an unexplained illness, part interesting, part boring. 
Source: Published in Sunday Pioneer on June 23, 2013

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