What a hot mess. WORLD WAR Z boasted one of the most bankable movie stars in the world in Brad Pitt, and its source material was a celebrated novel on zombies — subject matter that, thanks partly to the television hit “The Walking Dead,” is hugely popular. Can’t miss, right? Ah, there’s no such thing as a can’t-miss prospect in Hollywood, and while there are enjoyable stretches in the movie, the flick is yet another example of how too many chefs in the kitchen can almost set the kitchen ablaze.

The story is familiar enough: The Apocalypse. And like any apocalypse story, there are two methods of storytelling available to make it palatable for mass consumption … you know, as the world’s inhabitants are in the process of being mass consumed:

1)You make it intimate like a one-set play off-Broadway, concerning the lives of a small group or family trapped someplace as they get sporadic reports of the world in upheaval. Each character has a quirk, established early, that makes the audience root for their survival or demise. This can be done reasonably cheaply, and plays up the dread. Ex: SIGNS, Spielberg’s WAR OF THE WORLDS, and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.

OR …

2)A grand-scale, “This is BIG. Ay Dios Mio. Can our hero save the ENTIRE world?” actioner. Think LeBron James endorsement dollars as a budget … for craft service. Perhaps before Act 1 is over, world monuments will be engulfed in flames. Ex: INDEPENDENCE DAY, TERMINATOR 2, and the original WAR OF THE WORLDS.

OR …

3) All of the above, e.g. WORLD WAR Z

There were five credited writers involved in adapting Max Brooks’ novel to the silver screen, and while I have not read the book, reports indicate that about the only thing it shares with the movie is the title. The director, Marc Forster, surely had some creative input as well, as did Pitt himself, who was also a producer on the film. There may have been a lot more.  Yet with all the talent involved (or because of it) at some point someone important said: “Forget the big finish, we’ll end it with Brad walking untouched down a lab hallway, and then slap on voice-over narration over a quick montage.”

The decision to short the film may have taken place as late as post-production, in editing.  Just a gut feeling from the casting: I suspected actor Matthew Fox, capable of carrying some of the best “Lost” episodes, had a bigger role to play in the film as originally written and perhaps shot. Yet we spot him only twice in the movie, once with a mask on during the extraction of Pitt’s family from Newark, and then quickly bearing bad news to that same family. That’s it. Drew Goddard, once a “Lost” show head, is one of the credited writers here. Did he not want a big finish with Pitt and Fox involved? Why was Fox a glorified extra? Was there to be a firefight or rescue involved with that Pitt family? It was sure built to end that way.  They were the priority until the plot threw them away.

At this point something should be said about Pitt’s character, even if his Kurt Cobain haircut reminded me of the stoner character Floyd from “True Romance.” He’s a former U.N. specialist who’s seen some ugly stuff in diseased and violent corners of the globe. This establishes that the government will find him useful during the crisis, and how he can physically handle himself when sparring, face-to-teeth, with the undead. All of this works in a zombie flick – the genre explains over and over that men and women of action (cops, pilots, paramilitary types) are more valuable than any of the old positions of power (bankers, judges, politicians) when the turd hits the fan – and it must be said Pitt does a admirable job putting “Z” on his forty-something shoulders.

It’s just that this flick sends Pitt everywhere. At least one-third of the movie has Pitt locked away with his wife (Mireille Enos) and two young daughters in a cruiser or apartment armed with a rifle, magazines, and duct tape. An engaging film could be made from that first third, with our hero gradually figuring out how the zombies operate, finding medicine for his asthmatic daughter, and making a final, suspenseful escape to the aircraft carrier before the end credits. But no, in Act 2 Pitt is tasked with finding the source of the plague, backed by a SEAL team and a Harvard “expert,” with the fate of his family on that aircraft carrier raising the stakes. So he jets on over to South Korea and Israel, and later crash-lands within a convenient walking distance to the World Health Organization in Wales (Cardiff, I believe, it was hard to keep track at this point).

There are genuine frights involved in that medical facility, where every little sound signals danger, and the crash landing (and aftermath) was also well staged. Another welcome wrinkle: Instead of mankind crumbling in on itself like in other apocalypse stories, most of the characters help each other out in moments big and small.  Throw in some solid work from James Badge Dale as a U.S. soldier in South Korea (He’s going to be a star), an Israeli soldier capably played by Daniella Kertesz, and a planet chock full of fast-moving flesh-eaters who are rarely seen on camera actually eating flesh (Hello PG-13 rating), and the creatives thought they had enough.

But “Z” doesn’t fade out, it halts. Like a rabbit in a 1,600-meter race, WORLD WAR Z jets out in front of the rest of the genre, so sure of itself, before fading and ultimately deciding the finish is too far away. Instead, the film wheezes to a stop at the 1,500-meter mark and hopes no one will notice. It’s not the type of disaster that will bury the zombie flick for good, but it is forgettable, which is saying something considering the elements the filmmakers had in place before shooting began.