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ZOMBIELAND
(***)
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Movie Review by:
Jim "Good Old JR:" Rutkowski |
Directed by:
Ruben Fleischer |
Written by:
Rhett Reese,Paul Wernick |
Starring:
Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone |
Running time:
82 minutes
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Released:
10/02/09 |
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Rated R
for zombie horror
violence/gore and language. |
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" ...not only does “Zombieland” not stumble at any point, it actually grows
and thrives along its splat-sticky way”
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“Zombieland” is a film that comes to theaters with a
couple of strikes already against it. For starters, it is a movie that tries to
combine the comedy and horror genres and as we learned a couple of weeks ago
from the disastrous “Jennifer’s Body,” maintaining the proper balance between
the two tones is a difficult proposition for even the most skilled filmmakers.
Then there is the fact that it focuses on zombies and while those creatures may
not be as ubiquitous as vampires these days, there has been enough of a glut of
films involving the flesh-eating undead over the last few years to cause even
the most devoted fans of such things to question the need for yet another one.
Finally, the film’s basic comedic premise--people trying to cope with a world
suddenly overrun with zombies--is one that has already been explored at such
considerable length in the likes of “Shaun of the Dead” and the Max Brooks
guidebook “The Zombie Survival Guide” that most people would be hard-pressed to
think of a joke on the subject that hadn’t already been deployed at some point.
These are the kinds of daunting problems that might have caused most ordinary
films to stumble right out of the gate but miraculously, not only does
“Zombieland” not stumble at any point, it actually grows and thrives along its
splat-sticky way in such a way that it earns itself a place on the same shelf as
“Evil Dead 2” and, yes, “Shaun of the Dead.”
Set in the wake of a disaster that has transformed most of the population of
America (and presumably elsewhere) into zombies with great speed, impressive
numbers and an insatiable taste for human flesh--there is some talk of it being
caused by a form of mad-cow diseased inspired by tainted hamburgers--the film
stars Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus, a young man who fear of social situations and
an obsessive-compulsive disorder that drives him to create rules for everything
have allowed him to so far survive the onslaught without losing his mind to
loneliness or his body parts to his formerly human neighbors. On the road to
Ohio to see if his parents are still alive, he comes across another human
survivor in the form of Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a good ol’ boy who is
simultaneously obsessed with killing zombies in the most creative ways
imaginable and with rounding up as many of mankind’s final Twinkies as possible.
(His biggest nightmare is stumbling upon an abandoned Hostess truck and finding
it filled with nothing but Sno-Balls.) Eventually, the two come across a pair of
sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who are heading
west for an amusement park in California that is supposedly zombie-free.
Columbus and Tallahassee decide to go along for the ride and along the way, the
four kill a lot of zombies, make one wholly unexpected detour and arrive at the
park only to discover that it doesn’t come quite as advertised.
In essence, “Zombieland” is pretty much a one-joke movie for the most part, one
of the delightful things about it is how director Ruben Fleischer and
screenwriters Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick take that single joke and spin it off
in hilarious and sometimes unexpected directions, most of which I cannot even
hint at so as not to spoil any of the gags (in both senses of the word).. Many
people will no doubt compare this film to “Shaun of the Dead” and while it does
have some inevitable similarities, it actually plays more like a weirdo version
of “National Lampoon’s Vacation” with more corpses on display than Imogene Coca
than anything else--a literal road trip through Hell with an amusement park
serving as a symbol of peace and deliverance (if only they could have figured
out a way to get a zombie John Candy in there as a security guard.)--and while
it may seem weird to praise a film for more closely resembling one older movie
instead of another one, this approach does make the material seem a little
fresher than it might have otherwise seemed. The four stars do a good job of
bouncing off of each other while somehow figuring out how to ground the
increasingly surreal comedy in real emotions--Harrelson is exceptionally good as
a borderline psycho with a foul-mouthed quip and a gory method of dispatch for
every occasion and an understandable reason for why he is the way he is. On the
genre-straddling front, it is refreshing to note that while it does lean more
towards the humorous, it does have a couple of actual scares here and there (the
early scene in which Columbus is attacked in his apartment by newly zombified
neighbor Amber Heard is both funny and tense) and it certainly doesn’t skimp on
the red stuff. Finally, and most importantly, it knows when enough is
enough--the film clocks in at a lean and mean 90 minutes and wisely comes to a
conclusion at just the point when it might have begun to finally run out of gas.
However, the funniest segment of “Zombieland”--the one that would make the whole
thing worth seeing even if the rest of it had misfired--is the one that only a
complete monster would dream of revealing in total to someone who hasn’t had a
chance to see it. Without going into detail, I will only mention that during the
aforementioned unexpected detour, they come across perhaps the last person that
you would expect to see in these circumstances and in perhaps the last condition
that you might expect to see them in. (However, do not under any circumstances
click on to the “Zombieland” page at IMDB because the monsters in charge over
there have listed the person in the credits and who they play.) What transpires
from this point, I leave for you to discover except to note only a couple of
things. First, the scene allows the film to pay explicit tribute to another
notable scare comedy whose bent sense of humor was clearly and influence here.
Second--if the final on-screen words uttered by this person do not cause you to
actually laugh, you may want to check your pulse because there is a very good
chance that you may be a zombie as well. The finale of “Zombieland” takes the
action to a theme park setting, and Fleischer isn’t afraid to abuse the neon-lit
carnival iconography to backdrop the mounting, snarling body count. It’s a
terrific closer on an unexpectedly inspired film. Perhaps losing the box office
clout to all things vampire these days, zombies retain a distinctive screen
presence, and “Zombieland” knows just how to treat the plague: roughly and
uproariously. |
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ZOMBIELAND
© Sony Pictures Releasing
All Rights Reserved
Review © 2009 Alternate Reality, Inc.
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