So this is a vastly worse movie than the book, obviously. Let’s just set that aside; the book was great, and the movie discards that whole framework. This is a movie about Brad Pitt saving the day, and seeing the world through Brad Pitt’s eyes.

Once you accept that, though, it’s… not bad! It’s way better than Fucking Godzilla, and better than I thought it would be, for one big reason: I was sure, going in, that every fucking scene of the movie would be about Brad Pitt Saving His Family. But it’s not! There’s a little of that upfront, but then it’s about Brad Pitt just basically going on a zombie tour to collect plot coupons that he can redeem for one (1) free hope for humanity (limited time offer, void where prohibited).

So the movie still suffered from that weird amorality where we’re supposed to coldly watch 100 million people die horribly and really super care a lot about whether a handful of people in the foreground survive.[1] This is especially notable in a scene in Israel, where a whole bunch of people die saving Brad Pitt from a situation where literally everyone is dying and it’s not even clear why they’re supposed to give a shit about him.

At the end, it tries to kind of integrate a few moments from the book, and that is sad because it only serves to drive home how much better the book was than this movie. But taken on its own terms, it’s a reasonably okay-ish disaster porn movie.

  1. This is so common in so many movies that I wonder if it is actually effective for most of the viewing audience, and I am unusual in finding it distracting and sociopathic. ↩︎