The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself. Enos plays Gerry’s wife Karen Lane; Kertesz is his comrade in arms, Segen. (from MovieWeb.com)

If there's anything that's almost as big as superheroes in pop culture right now, it seems to be zombies. The walking undead have been growing in popularity for years, and right now they're dominating film, TV, video games and literature. If one isn't trying to survive a horde of zombies in a special game mode of Call Of Duty, they might be watching the hit TV show The Walking Dead or reading a book like World War Z (or doing all three). World War Z is the latest book to be turned into a feature film, but as most avid fans of the novel would say, the film is far from being faithful to the source material. Still, what World War Z, as a movie, actually is, is a zombie movie made for the popcorn-munching masses.

Director Marc Forster, who has had a wide variety of styles of films in his career, including Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction, Machine Gun Preacher and the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, tackles zombies this time around. The film, from the start, feels like it knows who its audience is. There's violence and scary scenes galore, but it's all shot deliberately for a PG-13 friendly audience. (In other words, it never feels like it's been edited down from an R rating to achieve a PG-13 rating... like Live Free Or Die Hard actually was.) Forster is a tremendous dramatic director; he has proven that he can inspire some really great performances out of his actors in movies, as evidenced in Finding Neverland and Stranger Than Fiction. However, Quantum of Solace proved one really painful truth: he can't do action. So many scenes in Quantum of Solace were hacked up beyond recognition, and it ultimately hurt the film's end product. Thankfully, he has either fired the team that helped mess all of that up or has learned from his mistakes, making World War Z work on nearly every level.

If you look at World War Z for what it is -- a popcorn zombie movie and not an adaptation of the book -- you're likely to appreciate it. Taking a less-is-more approach to the violence is something monster movies have done for decades. Leaving some of the horror up to the imagination can really have a greater impact on an audience than really graphic visuals. For World War Z, the zombies here are fast and furious. They run, jump, and swarm like insects. If you've seen any commercials, you know they pile on top of each other to vault over a gigantic wall. Just the fact that you're not safe anywhere in their presence and that they can detect yours from almost anywhere, is a horrifying concept alone. Forster plays up this paranoia a bit, but he also takes the viewer to various parts of the country and even the globe to make the threat feel bigger and more universal. Just one bite from these "turned" humans will make the victim a fellow member of the undead in about twelve seconds. It allows the horde to just continue to grow and grow in incredible numbers at an alarming rate of speed.

Brad Pitt plays the central character, Gerry Lane, a United Nations employee with special skills for investigation who is brought in when the outbreak of zombies happens. The movie gets started almost immediately as we meet the Lane family in their home before they get stuck in a Philadelphia traffic jam. From there, the Lanes are thrown into the chaos and Gerry witnesses a victim turn into a zombie before his very eyes. The story hardly slows for a moment from there as the family run for their lives and Gerry is called in by the government to help find out how this outbreak started and learn how to stop it. Pitt is excellent as Gerry, and Forster really gets a great performance out of him. While I kind of wanted to see more of a build up to the story than just being tossed into the fire minutes after the start, Forster gives a good amount of character moments sprinkled throughout the film, slowing things up just long enough to give the viewer some substance, but in the end, you still might feel that some good character building before the outbreak hits the fan may have been a better way to go. Still, through dimly lit scenes, mystery, and charging bloodthirsty zombies, World War Z is thrilling and compelling.

The content for World War Z is a hard PG-13 just based on subject matter alone. As far as visually graphic content, Forster & Co. play it remarkably safe. For example, we seldom get long looks at the actual zombies and most of the attacks and turnings happen off screen of in a flash. A lot of the emotion and fear is conveyed through Pitt's eyes alone, as well as through the building suspense of not knowing what might happen next. Sure, if you've seen the trailer, some scenes are more predictable, but ultimately, there's a lot left to the imagination. While you won't see any headshots or really gory zombie moments--with some attacks happening in the cover of night to hide some of the potentially graphic content--there are at least two pretty intense injuries that we see in part. The first involves a character who receives a zombie bite on their hand. Before they have the chance to "turn," someone hacks their hand right off. We don't see the actual cutting, but we see the action of the blade coming down and the victim's reaction. We then see the stub at the wrist all wrapped up. Later, the victim's wound dressings are changed and the camera is shaky and deliberately avoids showing what lies beneath the cloths. A little while later, we see a character lift up their shirt to find a large piece of metal sticking out of their side, with blood around its entry point. We soon find that the metal protrudes out of the character's back as well. While there is a lingering shot of the entry point of the metal sticking into their side, we only later see the person wrapped up after it has been removed. The only other gross visuals for people will be the zombies themselves. Some use their heads to smash windows to break into someplace, while others have discolored eyes and emaciated appearances. There are some longer glances at these creepy creatures toward the end of the film, where protruding teeth, glazed over eyes, and basically perfect fodder for unpleasant dreams are shown a little more liberally. There is some language, including several uses of the "S" word and a handful of uses of blasphemy, but it thankfully isn't constant. Finally, there's a scene where the Lanes are in a market in New Jersey, trying to find medicine, and a couple guys overpower Karin on the floor. There has been speculation online as to the intent of her attackers (some call it attempted rape, but it's brief and there's no real visual evidence to support that), but those sensitive to something like that may want to keep that in mind.

I was concerned after seeing the trailer that there would be too much dependence on CG effects to make the zombies come to life. While this is true to a degree, Forster and his filmmaking team do a pretty good job regardless. For example, while the vampire/zombie blend of the monsters in I Am Legend bordered on looking cartoony, they often look relatively convincing here -- especially when they're not vaulting over each other to get to their next victim. The film's creepy climax works very well because a lot of the make-up and effects were more practical.

The movie as a whole, will require viewers to suspend their disbelief. Some things happen a bit too conveniently or "too close for comfort," but it's utilized to bring suspense and keep the film moving at a rapid speed with our central hero intact (for the most part). Now, if you do happen to catch a glimpse of a familiar face in the background while watching, there's supposedly good reason. Actor Matthew Fox (TV's LOST) has nothing more than the role as an extra in World War Z, but after doing some web-serarching, I discovered that this was due to the fact that the latter half of the film had been changed dramatically from its original intent. I'll let you do your own research if you'd like to find out the apparent original direction the movie was supposed to take, but knowing this after seeing it, it explains how his character was supposed to play a much bigger part in a more melancholic finish to the film. The end that it was given for the theatrical release, however, works really well from a more grounded and tangible perspective. You're likely to feel like your traversing the halls of a haunted house around Halloween than experiencing a more grandiose, over-the-top finale that the movie almost had. (Still, as a fan of the show LOST, I would have liked seeing Fox in a more substantial role than just background dressing.)

In the end, I enjoyed World War Z a lot more than I thought I might--and I believe this has a lot to do with Forster taking a serious and not campy approach to the story. But the movie feels like a big screen walk through a haunted amusement park or a thrill ride than the typical zombie flick. Audiences be warned; World War Z is near mindless fun, but not for the faint of heart.

Origins (8:21) - Here, we find out that the development of the film started in 2006. Director Marc Forster talks about taking on the project and how the writer developed the novel (which was a collection of testimonies from around the world about the zombie war) into a narrative form. Marc also talks about starting with the characters and building the movie from there. Forster has always been a character-centric storyteller and it's great to see it carried through a film like this.

Looking to Science (7:28) shows how they approached the zombie concepts for this movie from a scientific viewpoint. They looked to nature and ants, specifically, to base the WWZ zombies after. They address their swarming behavior, talk about how zombies first appeared in literature in the 1800s, how Haiti has had records of actual drug-induced zombies over the years, and we see lots of concept art (some of which are a bit gross and kind of graphic), and finally, hear about "zombie ants."

WWZ Production (36:18) - This great behind-the-scenes featurette is broken up into four parts. First, "Outbreak" talks about the beginning of the film. We find out that Glasgow was used as the setting for Philadelphia for 18 days of filming. They also show how they got the look of Philly within the setting of Glasgow via some great special effects passes. "The Journey Begins" shows how they did the rooftop escape on a sound stage, the air carrier sequence and the scene set in Korea. There's some really great on-set footage here with interviews from the cast. "Behind the Wall" takes us to Jerusalem, which Forster said he wanted to use because it's the "birth of civilization." He also reveals that the first sequence shot was this segment. Finally, "Camouflage" is about the finale and the plane outbreak scene. It's all very interesting stuff.

However, diehard followers of the film's process (and resultant labor pains), will know that more was shot than was used for the movie. An entire third act was scrapped and thrown out in exchange for the "W.H.O." sequence at the end. Not a hint of this footage is shown here; there are no deleted scenes. And not a word is spoken about this original ending. I was hoping we would have heard something about it on the disc release.

Overall, I'm terribly disappointed in Paramount for deciding to release the film on Blu-Ray disc exclusively in its unrated form. I suppose they could do a second release in the future for those who wanted to see the PG-13 version on Blu, but it's probably unlikely. Hopefully this doesn't become a habit with studios.