Review: Zombieland

Zombieland

OPENING: 10/02/2009

STUDIO: Columbia Pictures

RUN TIME: 80 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
This place is so dead.

Opening Statement
Veering into comedy much less philosophical and far more visceral is the entertaining zombie comedy (zom-com?) Zombieland, which takes place in a world more or less overrun by zombies.

The Case
There are only a few humans surviving in this wasteland, including the obsessive-compulsive Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), the rough-and-tumble Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), the smart and savvy Wichita (Emma Stone), and spunky Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). This unlikely foursome teams up, fights zombies, and works out their personal issues to very amusing and slightly touching effect. It’s an offbeat, fun little movie that makes a nice companion piece to Edgar Wright’s similarly enjoyable Shaun of the Dead.

One of the odd things about Zombieland is the way it’s constructed. It opens with a series of very violent scenes (including a particularly gross, blood-soaked opening credits) and slowly works its way towards good-natured sweetness. The film accomplishes what it needs to, by providing the requisite levels of laughs and gore, but goes the extra mile by actually making us care about the characters involved. Beneath the seemingly tough-as-nails, R-rated exterior is a movie that really loves these eccentric survivors. Too many horror films (even comedically-inclined ones) encourage the audience to speculate on who will be the first to die and eagerly await their inventive deaths. It’s hard to imagine many people watching Zombieland and not wanting all four of the primary characters to make it to the end credits. Let the zombies do all the dying. Toss in a hilarious cameo, a handful of priceless lines, and a nutso-action-packed finale worthy of the word "payoff" and you’ve got a fun flick worth checking out.


The Verdict
8/10

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