To be clear, I am not doing a review on the novel, but the movie. The novel itself is a good read for a lazy Sunday, going over the political, socio-economical, religious extremes that the world would undergo if the world were to have a zombie outbreak. It's written as a reporter interviewing survivors about the pre-war, during the war, and post-war world that has been affected by a zombie plague that is never fully explained (though it is explained in the Zombie Survival Guide, written by the same author). Best selling novel, written by a best selling novelist. Great book.
The movie, if based off the book, was terrible. They created a weakness for the zombies, most of the movie is Brad Pitt surviving miraculous events while acting as a government agent searching for Patient Zero, going from South Korea to Israel to Wales. He fights zombies that are fast, they swarm like ants, and they can climb over each other in tumbling waves to get over steep walls.
Now the movie, if taken as a stand alone movie not based on a book, is actually pretty good with a let down ending. They took a soft approach with the ending, showing the people being vaccinated with a "cure" that renders them invisible to the undead, and shows people retaking cities from the ravenous hordes. Okay, fine. They show the protagonist going to meet his family in some remote northern locale where they've been shipped off to, while he muses that the "war has just begun."
Now I'm one who is always in favor of a zombie movie, but in this case I can't really say it was that good. The timing was bad, the acting poor, the action weak and the surprise scares almost non-existent. No suspense build up, just plot bread crumbs that we're supposed to follow like the good little pigeons we are. This movie was in no way horror, other than the fact it had zombies. Hell, the zombies weren't even that scary. Sure they were fast, but if your're sick or have a disease (or as my wife pointed out, are fat) than the zombies don't bite you and will leave you alone. They are looking for good hosts for their virus, and they are very picky: they skip over a homeless drunk, a soldier with an STD, a boy with malnutrition... the list goes on.
The only reason I'm doing a review of it now is because it is a free stream with Netflix, and that is primarily where my Post Mortem columns come from. So if you want a no-thinking zombie movie, try this one. For me, I'm sticking with Dawn of the Dead.
The movie, if based off the book, was terrible. They created a weakness for the zombies, most of the movie is Brad Pitt surviving miraculous events while acting as a government agent searching for Patient Zero, going from South Korea to Israel to Wales. He fights zombies that are fast, they swarm like ants, and they can climb over each other in tumbling waves to get over steep walls.
Now the movie, if taken as a stand alone movie not based on a book, is actually pretty good with a let down ending. They took a soft approach with the ending, showing the people being vaccinated with a "cure" that renders them invisible to the undead, and shows people retaking cities from the ravenous hordes. Okay, fine. They show the protagonist going to meet his family in some remote northern locale where they've been shipped off to, while he muses that the "war has just begun."
Now I'm one who is always in favor of a zombie movie, but in this case I can't really say it was that good. The timing was bad, the acting poor, the action weak and the surprise scares almost non-existent. No suspense build up, just plot bread crumbs that we're supposed to follow like the good little pigeons we are. This movie was in no way horror, other than the fact it had zombies. Hell, the zombies weren't even that scary. Sure they were fast, but if your're sick or have a disease (or as my wife pointed out, are fat) than the zombies don't bite you and will leave you alone. They are looking for good hosts for their virus, and they are very picky: they skip over a homeless drunk, a soldier with an STD, a boy with malnutrition... the list goes on.
The only reason I'm doing a review of it now is because it is a free stream with Netflix, and that is primarily where my Post Mortem columns come from. So if you want a no-thinking zombie movie, try this one. For me, I'm sticking with Dawn of the Dead.
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