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Brad Pitt admirably carries this big-budget zombie apocalypse flick that has more in common with Outbreak or Contagion than it does your standard zombie fare -- don't expect blood and gore, horror fans. Director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Stranger Than Fiction) succeeds in ratcheting up the tension with a script (based very loosely on Max Brooks' book) that is essentially one dramatic escape sequence after another.

I haven’t experienced this kind of tension at the movies since Spielberg’s version of War of the Worlds. It’s refreshing to see a big-budget movie spend most of its time building suspense, instead of bombarding us with the usual visceral chaos.

Despite the apocalypse and all, Pitt manages to imbue the film with a little of his own humanitarian philosophy. Whether through sacrifice or perseverance, many characters in the movie perform selflessly in the face of annihilation. I think it’s a noble element to maintain, especially in a scenario so dire.

Some may find the ending soft or anti-climactic, but I think anything more resolved would have come at a loss of tension. (My preference would have been an even more open ending.) And we really don’t need the preachy closing narration.