World War Z Has Some Saying 'Zzzzzz'

For all the fanfare surrounding it, World War Z is a fair-to-middling zombie movie, critics say. Brad Pitt stars as a former UN investigator who takes to the skies to fight the undead menace. From the reviews:

• The movie "does not try to extend the boundaries of commercial entertainment but does what it can to find interesting ways to pass the time within them," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "And in many ways, when compared with Man of Steel, Iron Man 3 and Star Trek: OMG Ricardo Montalbán!, World War Z is pretty refreshing."

• An "undulating-mass-of-zombies image is this movie’s ace in the hole, the reliably jolting vision it returns to whenever things start to feel a little thin in the story department," Dana Stevens notes at Slate. As for Pitt, he "has perfected the soulful thousand-yard stare of the thinking action hero."
• Other critics are less friendly, however: In the Guardian, Peter Bradshaw writes that "the real panic spreads in the cinema auditorium as we realize we've got two hours of dodgy acting and dull CGI work ahead, culminating in massed snoring."
• World War Z "is no summer thriller," observes Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News. "It’s an anemic actioner that fosters excitement like dead limbs as it lumbers toward a conclusion."

(More World War Z stories.)