"World War Z"

This movie about Brad Pitt zooming around the world to fight zombies would be a good March release. But for June it's a little odd because even though it cost a fortune, it's not a blockbuster. Instead, it's a fairly effective smallish movie. Compared to Man of Steel, in which former superstars Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe play Superman's two dads, Pitt is just about the only recognizable face in the cast. Compared to Robert Downey Jr. exchanging Shane Black's carefully crafted witticisms with Sir Ben Kingsley in Iron Man 3, there's not much of the superfluous talent on display here that grown-ups have come to expect from big budget summer movies.

World War Z is a cross between the first turbo-zombie film, 28 Days Later, ending as that one begins, in a British medical facility, and M. Night Shyamalan's extraordinarily badly done allergy allegory The Happening (both The Happening and World War Z start with the heroes fleeing apocalyptic infection in Philadelphia).

Like most movies these days, World War Z features the might of the U.S. military, although perhaps in deference to the Bono-ish sensibilities of Angelina Jolie, Brad plays some kind of retired U.N. troubleshooter called back to U.N. duty to save the world. But, whatever, he's still Brad Pitt, Movie Star. The role isn't as terrific as his 2011 career year roles in The Tree of Life and Moneyball, but he's in his prime.

The plot makes very little sense. Electronic communications seem to have been disinvented, so Brad just has to fly around the world to find out what's going on.

The movie is vaguely based on the novel by Max Brooks, the extremely nervous son of Mel Brooks and the late Ann Bancroft. Zombies are a metaphor for every single thing that has made Max agitated while he obsessively watches 24 hour news channels.

Max is a huge fan of the emphasis on logistics in Tom Clancy novels, although that's downplayed in the movie.  (By the way, the all time king of logistics fiction is Frederick Forsyth, as in The Dogs of War.) At hippy-dippy Pitzer College, Max joined the ROTC. But, like Evelyn Waugh during WWII, he was disappointed to discover that the military didn't think he was much of a leader of men.

The best scene is when Brad flies to Jerusalem (Malta standing in as the location). Because they constantly snoop on the rest of the world's electronic communications, the Israelis figured out the zombie outbreak was coming early, allowing them to put up giant walls around the border of their country, which has kept the infection out, so far. The Times of Israel says, "The summer zombie blockbuster, which opened June 21 in the US, is the greatest piece of cinematic propaganda for Israel since ‘Exodus.’"

But then Palestinians grateful for being rescued by the Israelis break out in song, which attracts the attention of the zombies ... 

Zombies form a post-human pyramid
to clamber over Great Wall of Israel before the JDF
can gun them down.