Zombieland Movie Review

Zombieland

Movie Review

By Alan Del Rio

George Romero has a lot to answer for. Over forty years after Night of the Living Dead reignited interest in a previously formulaic genre, the zombie horror film is still taking a bite out of global cinema box offices. Romero's 1968 film was subversive at the time – featuring a black hero who survives the zombies, but is killed by a redneck posse – and is still inspiring young filmmakers to have a go themselves. Zombieland is the latest take on the genre, and its about as fresh as a film featuring rotting corpses can be.

Set in a post-apocalyptic, zombie infested world, Zombieland follows a small group of survivors as they search for a small, safe patch of land to call their own. Pretty much par for the zombie owned, controlled and operated course so far, right? Well, what sets this film apart is the imaginative, hilarious script, a cast that extracts every last iota of humour, drama and action from same, and snappy direction from newcomer Ruben Fleischer.

I must admit that I had a hard time settling into the movie. The first five minutes, including credits, are more reminiscent of an eighties hair metal music video than a feature film. But, when the cast finally hit the screen, and lead character Columbus (all of the characters go by Pelham-like aliases – in this case their home town) outlines his rules for surviving a zombie holocaust, the movie begins to gain some momentum.

Zombieland is decidedly “new zombie”. It eschews Romero's shuffling, slow-moving undead in favour of the hyper-fast (and scarier) Zack Synder variety. The soundtrack is filled with the heaviest of metal, and all of the characters have adjusted to their decaying environment like the urban badasses they are. This last fact slightly undermines the menace which the zombies should possess, as mostly they are fodder for humourous set pieces, but the film never completely castrates their rotting unmentionables, and they play a key role in the unnerving finale.

The cast, only consisting of four main characters, and one unexpected, side-splitting, movie-stealing cameo, is immense. Woody Harrelson gives his funniest performance since White Men Can't Jump, as the tough but yielding Tallahassee, whose sole purpose is to find earth's last edible Twinkie. Jesse Eisenberg is fast developing a niche as the guy you get when Michael Cera is busy. He provides the everyman character to Harrelson's rampaging Tallahassee, and his rules form the linchpin of the movie.

Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin are terrific as the con artist sisters. Believable and above all funny, they add a welcome extra layer of conflict between the human characters. Now, how do I talk about the cameo without giving away that it's Bill Murray? Oops. Murray arrives at the midpoint, when the main characters stay in his house, and although he is only on screen briefly, he single-handedly drags the film through the usual second act slump. Best cameo I have seen since Will Ferrell in Wedding Crashers or Anthony Hopkins' brief appearance in Silence of the Lambs.

It's not all good news though. I was, at times, left wondering why certain creative choices were made, mostly because I was disappointed that a team which had gotten so much right had managed to drop the ball at all. For instance, Fleischer seems to adhere to the music video school direction, all décollage and slow motion action. And while this works well for the most part, it does occasionally draw attention to itself, which is a cardinal directing sin. Additionally, although the script is by far my favourite element of the movie, the semi-frequent voice overs are just plain lazy storytelling.

In an interesting (define interesting – ed.) aside for any movie trivia heads reading this, the reason for the breakdown of civilization in Zombieland is a form of human adapted mad cow disease. This form of infection is borrowed, whether intentionally or by coincidence, from the 2004 Irish zombie film Dead Meat, which is worth a closer look if you can find it on DVD. Yet again Irish ingenuity shapes the face of modern film making. That's why we're called “the Hollywood of Europe” (I'm pretty sure that's a lie - ed.).

Zombieland is funny, scary, savvy, tense, and above all ass-kickingly cool. All excellent reasons to go see it, but there is one thing above all else which makes me recommend this film; you've got to love a movie whose tag line is Nut Up or Shut Up.

4 out of 5 stars