World War Z (2013)

When I tried to say this wasn't a zombie movie, my family laughed me out of the room.  Yes, so I will concede that it is a zombie movie,  but it is really a movie about a pandemic that is rapidly spreading and overwhelming in it's scope.  Where 'Contagion' gave a largely muted picture of a highly virulent flu, it was marked by two tempering messages.  One was that a cure was within our grasp within months (which is highly optimistic, but when you know you are dealing with an infectious agent, you do have a leg up on figuring out a pathway to cure), and the other was that the spread, while impressive for an infectious agent, was not devestatingly fast.

In the zombie apocalypse we have no such hope.  The spread of the disease is unthinkably rapid, the hosts actively seek out the uninfected with vicious and terrifying success, and containment of the disease is just not possible.  It is not like the build up to World War II where everyone knew that war was inevitable and the question was not if but when.  So you could build barriers, emigrate, get yourself to neutral territory if you were a forward thinker.  In this war you are helpless. 

The movie itself is a fine piece of work if it is judged within the action adventure framework, where the special effects are at least as important as the script itself.  Brad Pitt manages to come off as a brave intuitive man who you are pleased to see come out ahead in the end, and there is a strong female to play Tonto to his Lone Ranger. Divertionary, but with the possibility of provoking deeper thought is how I would sum it up.