Among Zombie movie fans there is an eternal conversation of fast zombies vs. slow zombies. George A. Romero purists will cry foul at the 28 Days Later faster moving zombies and fans of the faster zombies will say that slow zombies just do not create a scary enough effect anymore in a world with automatic weapons. I tend to not get in the middle of such conversations because to me, a zombie is a zombie is a zombie. Flesh eating undead creatures are scary, whether they run or lumber slowly. However, the zombie movie is kind of, pardon the pun, dead. Resident Evil movies are kind of the closest thing we get to zombie movies and well, those movies have just spun out of control. Well, when the slasher flick died, Wes Craven created a series of slasher flicks meant to scare and point fun at slasher flicks. It rejuvenated the genre (whether that is good or not can be debated). So, it makes sense that the same would be done to the zombie flick. In comes Zombieland. I know, I know, Shaun of the Dead, but Shaun of the Dead was not so much a good zombie movie as it was a funny movie. The difference is subtle, but it is important.
Columbus(Jesse Eisenberg) is a young neurotic man who happens to be one of a very few human survivors of a zombie epidemic. He has survived because of his list of survival tips. He is kind enough to share his list with us, in a series of voice over narrations as he takes us on his road trip with him. His tips include "Limber up" "Always check the backseat" and most importantly "Don't be a hero." These tips have helped him survive which is remarkable because he is nothing special and does not seem adept at killing zombies. Enter, Tallahassee(Woody Harrelson), a good old boy with lots of weapons and a serious hankering for Twinkies, who happens to be a great zombie killer. Columbus and Tallahassee make an odd team, but they work well together and soon they are joined by the sister team of Little Rock(Abagail Breslin) and Wichita(Emma Stone) who con the guys a few times before they decide to join forces and head out to Los Angeles because there is a rumor that an amusement park out there is untouched by zombies.
In what should be considered a hybrid of road trip/buddy comedy/zombie/video game style movies, Zombieland is ferociously funny, disgustingly gory and absolutely spectacular. Jesse Eisenberg's rules of surviving a zombie Apocalypse are akin to Jaime Kennedy's rules for surviving a horror movie and Zombieland takes many cues from poking some fun at the zombie genre. However, Zombies are not prominently featured in this movie. They appear exactly when they need to appear, but they are certainly not the main characters. What we get are 4 very real feeling characters not quite sure why they are holding on, but doing everything they can to hold on to life. Columbus believes he has survived alone for so long because he never felt close to anyone anyway. He lived life as a loner before the zombies took over and so there was no real change. Tallahassee is harboring ill feelings towards the zombies because they took the one thing he loved, so his venom is understandable. The conning sisters still have each other and with the help of a well placed flashback, we find out they have always just relied on each other.
In fact, all of the flashbacks are well placed, especially Jesse Eisenberg's. It is funny, depressing and surprisingly scary. The movie is not after scaring us very much, but it does have a few nice surprises up it's sleeve. The zombies are of the fast moving variety, but they are not intelligent creatures and are easily killable in a variety of ways, which Tallahassee has some fun with. He does not appear to like to use the same weapon twice and we get some crowd pleasing sequences with him doing some serious killing. He is also prone to some freak outs, just to keep him sane and in a wonderfully cheery scene, the entire gang destroys some property to blow off steam.
When the movie makes it to Los Angeles, things really get good. First, the group decides to take up residence in a famous actor's house, which provides the movie, with what might be one of the best cameos I have ever seen in a movie. Half the critics have ruined it and you can find it on Zombieland's IMDB page, but I will not ruin it for anyone who wants to enjoy the surprise. This cameo is funny, not just because it is a cameo, but because it is perfectly placed and perfectly used and does not end in a way you might think it would. From there we get two nice touching moments from the different pairs of people, all of which prepare us for an amazing climax.
The title Zombieland is meant to conjure up images of a country overrun by zombies and the voice over narration calls America Zombieland repeatedly, but adding the word "land" to the end of something also conjures up images of Disneyland, or at the very least an amusement park where there are games about killing zombies. First time director Ruben Fleischer obviously understood what the screen writers were doing with the name and the climax because he sets up a climax for the ages. Set in an amusement park that still runs, somehow, Woody Harrelson goes on half a dozen rides in order to kill the zombies lurking on the rides in what amounts to a free for all zombie killing roller coaster. It is shot beautifully and the action moves at such a break neck pace that you cannot help but get sucked in. Then, in order to bring the point home more, Jesse Eisenberg gets chased into a haunted house in the amusement park.
Zombieland packs serious comedy chops of the physical variety and in the lines, but especially with the use of block lettering reminding us of the rules. Woody Harrelson is having about as much fun as a person can possibly have making a movie and he plays very well off of Eisenberg. Emma Stone is truly a sexy young actress making interesting movie choices and is sure to be a geek goddess if she keeps making choices like this. Abagail Breslin plays perfectly against type and is having as much as I have seen her have in quite some time. These four actors have helped create a zombie infested land that seem like it could be kind of fun to live in. The gore and splatter level should satisfy the horror nuts, but this movie is meant to be pure unadulterated Post-Modern fun and it succeeds on every level. This is a movie sure to entertain me for years to come.
Final Grade: A
On a side note, how sexy does Emma Stone look holding a chainsaw? mmmmm
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