Pretty bland Zombie film, with very few scares and only a moderate amount of tension. Quick note, I have not read the novel that this film is based on, but I hear that it’s substantially different. The thing that usually makes zombie films scary is the overwhelming amount of the undead that plague the lead characters. While there is a global epidemic of death and destruction, we only see fleeting glimpse of it, and the heroes tend to avoid the worst of it. With the exception of wide shots, the zombies tend to be heard and not seen. Their high-pitch Tasmanian Devil-like sounds are unnerving, but they’re not on screen long enough to truly make an impact. Also, cutting from the characters out in the middle of the chaos and the ones in safety breaks too much of the tension. The story is OK, moving along at a logical pace, but it leads to hard to swallow tale of survival, luck and problem solving. While Brad Pitt is an interest protagonist, the rotating group of survivors he meets are either one –dimensional or intriguing but left behind as Pitt moves along with the story. Another thing that makes zombie movies terrifying is watching as the dead devour the living, but thanks the PG-13 rating, we see a few bites and very little blood. The final sequence is probably the most tension-filled point in the movie, but it’s too little, too late to pull the movie out of mediocrity.
** 1/2 out of *****