Zombieland (***½)

Directed by: Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin, Amber Heard, Bill Murray
Seen: November 20th 2009

***½ Out of ****

Zombieland has a short, sweet, and established plot. The world (in specific America), has been overrun by Zombies, and all the survivors are headed somewhere in a hopeful frame of mind that they are going where there are no Zombies. Those on the east-coast are headed west, and vice versa. But in Zombieland things do not go down a la Resident Evil, where this is a deadly serious catastrophy, but rather in a comedic way, with things like Zombie Kill of the Wweek featuring quite prominently among some well-used tricks to make the movie extremely entertaining.

The opening credits are a montage of fantastic slow-motion “zombie-hits” on either running or unsuspecting normal citizens; from a bridegroom being tackled by his rabid bride to a stripper running after a suited businessman to little child zombies chasing their mother. An important part of the movie’s design tone is also set in the opening montage, as the credits are inserted in the scene in such a way that weapons shatter the letters, running characters make them tumble off their ‘perches’, etc. This is a fantastic choice, as through the entire movie Columbus’ (Eisenberg) rules for surviving in Zombieland are also presented on-screen in this way.

Rule #1 is Cardio – Columbus states this rather early in the movie, claiming that the ‘fattties’ were the first to go as they could not outrun the Zombies, and thus cardiovascular exercise is almost the be-all and end-all of survival rules. A bunch of other rules are presented during the run of the movie, and they are always relevant to the situation (some rules are shown three or four times during the movie, whenever a relevant scene comes along, and just the reminder of the rule in itself is pretty funny).

The story is also quite surprising for a movie of this type, as there are small moments that have a bigger emotional impact than you would expect. Columbus is on his way to Columbus, Ohio, to see if his parents have survived the apocalypse. After losing his car in an accident he encounters Tallahassee (Harrelson), a gun-totin’ man reminiscent of the wild-west who has almost no rules, except for trying to get a Zombie Kill of the Week and finding a Twinkie. They also run into two sisters, Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin), and the four set of for Pacific Playland in Los Angeles, which is rumoured to be Zombie free (hopeful frame of mind). All does not go according to plan (obviously), but along the way they have some strange hunting adventures and also run into an (almost unlikely) apocalypse survivor played by Bill Murray, one of those people who simply has to show up to get a laugh out of audiences.

Zombieland is definitely not for everyone, as it is violent and gory and bloody, but it is fantastic (almost light-hearted) entertainment if you can find Zombies funny. My advice for this type of movie is that you should simply take things (and life itself) as it comes, and enjoy the little things.