**1/2 / ***** (C-)

It has a nice idea of a twist on the usual zombie movie and it's actually quite enjoyable in the first 2/3 of it, but it falls apart in the last third. I almost wish this was split into two movies because I feel that the story could've been pretty well developed to a more satisfying ending. The first movie could be about the experiments in the base and the attack on the base, the second one about the survivors of the attack trying to get to the other base in hopes of finishing the cure.

The two movies might not be much better than the one we have here, but at least the tacked on afterthought of the ending would be properly developed and awarded the time it needed. I've read the summary of the book's ending and it makes much more sense and is more satisfying but it also feels like it was a story worth exploring.

This is definitely an inventive and well-crafted variation on the zombie film. I watched it with almost no prior knowledge of its plot, and the first act plays incredibly well as a result: every reveal functions as a genuine surprise, which is refreshing in the era of oversharing trailers and television spots. The second and third acts are a more standard-issue chase-journey film, but it is still riveting, with convincing post-apocalyptic art direction and a nicely mounting sense of desperation and dread. And the talented adult actors (Gemma Arterton, Glenn Close, Paddy Considine) enliven and elevate their archetypal characters: the scientist, the soldier, etc.

It would be an A- if it ended one scene sooner. The shot of the girl and the teacher touching through the glass door as the spores rain down is the perfect last image: intimate, doom-laden. Sadly, there is one minute left, and it is rather absurd and ill-judged. How long is she going to last in the mobile laboratory? Breathable air? Food? Potable water? The film seems to believe it is far more tenable scenario than it truly is. And the image of the feral "neonates" (Peter Pan's Lost Boys as imagined by George A. Romero) rowdily sitting for a lesson just earns an unintentional laugh, and this film should not have ended with an unintentional laugh.

B+

Main plot: The world is infested with a fungal disease that turns infected humans into zombie-like "hungries". Infected pregnant women get killed by their newborns, a hybrid creature that can empathize and think like humans, but crave flesh and blood like hungries. Humans lock up the hybrid and perform experiments on them, hoping to find a cure for the disease. Humans and hungries cannot co-exist, but hungries and the hybrid can. Can turning humans into hungries and the hybrid stop all the chaos?

The movie has a subversive idea other zombie-apocalyptic movies rarely touch on. What if the human-to-hybrid mutation is a part of the evolutionary process? What if this is a war of adaptability between old humans and new hybrids rather than a war between good and evil? With a larger production and a tighter script, this could be an A-list sci-fi movie with depths.

73/100 (B)

The ending scene, though illogical with the accommodation of the mobile lab, is meaningful. It conveys the sense that human legacy gets to live on with the sole surviving human passing on knowledge and civility lessons to the hybrid.

Oh I remember this was brilliant movie. It has great concept with great thrills and you care for the humans as well as "hungries"

8/10