It's hard to read World War Z by Max Brooks—Chronicler of the Undead, Son of Mel—and not see how a film version could've worked. Subtitled "an oral history of the zombie war," Brooks' post-apocalyptic survey profiles the war-weary survivors of a global zombie infestation, turning out to be less about zombies and more about Middle Eastern politics and America's tectonic class disparities. Relevant and scary and melancholy, Brooks' book pushes all the right buttons; with a few million and a few hours, Ken Burns could've turned it into something remarkable. Instead, we get World War Z, which—as a wannabe action franchise and a multiplex-friendly narrative—ditches nearly everything interesting about Brooks' book. by Erik Henriksen