As is the case with most troubled productions, we will likely never know what truly went wrong with World War Z. It had the pedigree of a popular book, a fairly talented (although non-action-oriented) director in Marc Forster, and this guy you may have heard of named Brad Pitt behind it. Still, with all that, and writers Damon Lindelof (Prometheus, Star Trek Into Darkness), Matthew Michael Carnahan (State of Play, The Kingdom), and Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) working on the script, and reportedly extensive re-shoots, the end result is almost shockingly sub-par. Essentially, what could have been an ultimate cinematic zombie experience is reduced to a ridiculous story that they try to mask with over-the-top visuals.

There is a conceit when it comes to comedy writing (of which there is little to none of in this movie), that there should be at least three jokes on each page of the script. World War Z seems to take a modified approach to that maxim, not by piling jokes on top of another, but by piling conflict after inane conflict on top of one another. The film is far leaner than I had expected it to be, at 116 minutes. That's not the problem. The problem is the excessive need to justify this fast-paced frenetic world after the zombie invasion, with some utterly ludicrous choices these characters make, and equally contrived scenarios they find themselves in.

Yes, I get it, the world has gone to hell in a hand basket, sh*t happens, and you have to act fast. I hardly find myself contemplating such logistical issues in a movie, but when they are presented in a manner such as this, I just can't help myself. Would a high-ranking military officer really threaten to throw a man's family back into the zombie chaos if said man didn't help him? Would a pilot just take off and leave his passengers behind, just before they were running up to the plane? The committee of writers set up a world where any semblance of decency is thrown out the window (save for when it's convenient), which may very well be the case, if an undead apocalypse really took place. However, to me, these instances just seemed so obviously forced, shoehorned in to make the story move along, in lieu of finding a way to do so organically. Also, for all the "rules" they set up in this zombieland, they have a tendency to break them.

There is a scene towards the beginning of the film, where the proverbial sh*t first hits the fan. Former U.N. employee Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) observes (through stylistic slo-mo) that a normal human turns into a zombie 12 seconds after being bitten. They hammer this notion home a few more times in the film, as a rapid-fire litmus test to see who is infected and who isn't, which is fine, except that it renders one of the bigger action set pieces to nearly laughable proportions.

After Gerry's pilot takes off without him in Jerusalem, Gerry and Israeli soldier Segen (played admirably by newcomer Daniella Kertesz, although I wish she had more to do here), board an outgoing plane just before it takes off, full of healthy, non-flesh-eating humans. Hours later, conveniently, the zombie scourge somehow manages to rear its ugly head in what we believe to be a secure and contained environment, which leads to a sequence which almost completely took me out of the movie entirely. Sure, there is a paltry pseudo-explanation as to how this may have happened, but that isn't fully understood until later in the film, when a new set of "rules" are introduced, which leads me to believe they just kept making more rules to compensate for the holes in the rules they had already determined.

Despite the logistical problems presented here, the epic visual nature of this zombie-laden world, when it isn't incredibly over-edited (which is most often the case), is rather stunning, given it's presented within the right frame (which most often is not the case). There are even a few somewhat-brilliant storytelling techniques which adds new and, surprisingly, logistically-sound layers to the zombie oeuvre. Brad Pitt delivers a solid and mature turn as Gerry Lane, bringing the perfect level of gravitas to a character who thought he had seen it all, before the dead began to rise. Mireille Enos (The Killing) does a fine job as Gerry's wife, although Matthew Fox and James Badge Dale (who was great as Coldblood in Iron Man 3) are virtually unrecognizable as a Parajumper and Captain Sepke, both seen earlier in the film.

The ending will likely be a point of contention for most, regardless of how much they liked or disliked the film up until that point. Myself, I enjoyed the very, very, very end, which somehow managed to put a tidy-esque bow around all the chaos that ensued, without coming off as incredibly trite. The first two acts have enough moronic material for the entire summer combined, so, for me, the third act felt refreshingly genuine, which showed Gerry's true colors, especially when considering he didn't really want to be there in the first place.

It should be noted that the original third act is reportedly what Paramount had so many problems with, bringing in both Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard to re-work the ending. While we may never find out what this initial final act comprised of, it's too bad the studio didn't realize how problematic the first two acts were as well.