Almost none of this has made it into the film. It also has some astounding images, like a submarine being overwhelmed by zombies on an ocean floor, or the US army’s Alamo-like stand against millions of the ghouls. It has smart things to say about geo-politics. The bleak book from which it takes its name and loose outline, by Max ‘son of Mel’ Brooks, zips all over the globe, looking at the horror from a range of perspectives. In particular, horror fans jonesing for grand-scale carnage are unlikely to come away entirely satisfied.
But it's also just a little bit bland and generic.
The result is slick, tense and hangs together fine, far from the disaster many predicted during its tortured birthing. Flash forward several decades and you have World War Z: a huge-budget summer release, starring one of Hollywood's biggest and handsomest names, that sets out to actually show a worldwide assault by the undead. An invasion of a farmhouse was fine, a city block just about doable, but anything bigger had to be relayed via a flickering TV or solemn radio transmission. When the zombie movie as we know it first twitched into life, it was a niche concern, with budgets to match.
