Metacritic reviews

An efficient and effectively exciting globe-spanning zombie thriller.

Emerges as a surprisingly smart, gripping and imaginative addition to the zombie-movie canon, owing as much to scientific disaster movies like “The China Syndrome” and “Contagion” as it does to undead ur-texts like the collected works of George Romero.

Forster's meticulousness—coupled with ample excuses to blow stuff up—isn't enough to turn World War Z into one of those class-A end-of-everything movies that leaves you feeling just a little bit queasy, momentarily uncertain of your own small place in this unmanageable world.

This nightmarish travelogue is coy about gore, but it’s still an effective thrill-ride. If the sequel happens, let’s hope it delivers some actual combat.

Choosing quantity over quality, intensity over tension and big-screen thrills over low-fi shocks – this is probably what the zombie apocalypse will actually look like.

Brad Pitt delivers a capable performance in an immersive apocalyptic spectacle about a global zombie uprising.

While some of World War Z is rotten, the whole stands as a punchy, if conventional action thriller.

The result looks less like a horror flick and more like a thinking man’s action-thriller – the ‘Newsnight’ of zombie films (you’ll know if that’s your cup of tea).

The film can be engaging, well-made, and even a touch more interesting than it has much right to be. But it's also far from a satisfying work as a whole.

What we get is a collection of moderately violent action set-pieces untroubled by humour or broader coherence.