Z/Web

This is a somewhat innovative zombie movie: the special effects of mass zombies (literally a mountain of them) is pretty cool (and creepy) and is the main reason to see this. Beyond that, the story’s pretty thin.

I did like the ending in the sense that not everything’s resolved perfectly, which is realistic, and it leaves the door open for sequels, I suppose. But it also makes the story feel slightly incomplete, like stopping a book midway through.

What troubled me the most, however, is the awkward, choppy pace. This is mostly an issue in the first half an hour, where the director’s trying to establish a ton of stuff quickly: introducing our main characters, zombie takeover, and the perilous escape of our main characters.

While this is handled, just barely, it feels like so much is being left out. The action is lightening fast and hard to follow, and everything, especially the characters, is paper thin. Much isn’t explained and logic isn’t exactly prevalent.

Every zombie movie has its own “rules” and at the beginning, the audience is trying to figure out this world, so things are confusing. I’m also a little skeptical of this particular world — where a single bite turns you into a zombie in ten seconds — but you suspend disbelief and accept it. (That speedy conversion process is also key to why zombies overtake the world so quickly. Just one zombie getting into a city can start a mass infection that turns every resident into a zombie within hours.)

Once the real story gets going, the film’s pretty good. It feels like the first part was just the introduction and exposition the director just wanted to get through as quickly as possible so he could get to the good stuff — but why bother with that earlier part if you’re not going to do it well?

The main story is excellent: the idea is our hero is traveling around the world, trying to find the original source of the zombie outbreak so that a vaccine can be created. This gives an unusual global scope that most zombie films don’t have, and it’s a little bit of a detective story, as the hero searches for clues while risking his life.

Some of these scenes are amazing: huge overhead shots of tens of thousands of zombies flooding over a city wall, climbing buildings, helicopters and planes crashing, and more. It’s really well done.

But it’s interesting that the most exciting parts of the film are the ones with minimal action and people. The tension of one person going down a deserted corridor with zombies around the corner is far more dramatic than mass zombie carnage.

The bottom line is this is an above average zombie film, but it unfortunately doesn’t raise itself above that. Any single episode of The Walking Dead has far more existential implications and depth than this film. Still, it is fun and the special effects are worth seeing.