Review of Zombieland (2009) by Jack J — 19 Feb 2014

You won't find many movies out there where the opening scene features someone speaking the phrase "The United States of Zombieland." But that's the tone of "Zombieland," made by a first-time director but featuring a talented cast and hilarious writing which makes for one of the funniest yet most surprisingly heartfelt gore-fests I've ever seen. When it comes to horror satires, I know a lot of people prefer "Shaun of the Dead," but I simply prefer "Zombieland" because of how it pokes fun at the genre and the scenarios the characters take part in.

We start with the timid "Columbus" (Jesse Eisenberg); we don't really become aware with our characters' names: just where they seem to be going. He's looking to get back to his hometown after zombies have basically taken over the world. He meets up with "Tallahassee" (Woody Harrelson), sporting a cowboy hat on his head and a perpetually unfriendly scowl on his face; they decide to travel together for the time being. I know there have been many "odd couple" buddy movie scenarios like this before, but I have so much fun watching these two, especially the first time they meet. Tallahassee drives up in his car, he and Columbus point their guns at each other, then Columbus raises his thumb in a hitchhike pose, and Tallahassee gives a shrug to motion, "Get in." It's hilarious, and I love how casually he mentions how the two of them probably won't get along too well.

I have to mention the recurring theme of "rules" on how to survive in Zombieland. Columbus, in a narration, tells a bunch of rules he has on how to stay alive, which simultaneously points out some of the stupid things horror movie characters do: always check the back seat of a car, wear seatbelts, double-tap, etc. I enjoy the way these rules slide their way into the movie, incorporating themselves into certain scenes without Columbus' input.

So while Tallahassee is looking for a Twinkie (yep, I'm serious), they meet a pair of sisters, "Wichita" (Emma Stone) and "Little Rock" (Abigail Breslin), who, even before zombies took over, seemed to make a living out of conning gullible people out of money. It's not exactly my favorite scene when they first meet, but I'm just more thoughtful of how these two actually live. Did they have parents that they lived with? How are they going by such different names? They're performances that you might expect from Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin, but they interact quite well, and that's really why this movie stands out so much to me: I love the interactions between all four of these characters. The personalities are very different, they have very humorous conversations at times and yet they still get across plenty of heart in some of the stuff they talk about.

But of course, the meat of "Zombieland" is the humor, and it's delivered very quickly and very cleverly; it's joyfully over-the-top at times but features some subtle charm as well; I especially like the brief scenes between Tallahassee and Little Rock. And it has one of my favorite movie scenes, where they're all in this store and proceed to cheerfully destroy everything in sight. They say it best, "You've got to enjoy the little things." It goes back to one of the things I said in my "Dawn of the Dead" review, that sometimes you need moments like these to retain a sense of who you are in a crisis like this. Add to that the killings are funny at times and so is the surprise celebrity cameo when they get to California. Won't spoil that for you, but it's just brilliant.

It's not perfect in all it does; I've seen better performances from each of these actors--Jesse Eisenberg in "The Social Network," Woody Harrelson in "Natural Born Killers," Emma Stone in "Easy A" and Abigail Breslin in "Little Miss Sunshine," but that's not really what this movie requires. It mostly requires these characters to bounce their different personalities off each other in tune with the wild chaos that goes on throughout the movie. It certainly feels like the tone of the movie and the characters of the movie flow together and complement each other; often it seems like one aspect of a movie dominates the other. But overall, "Zombieland" is excellent in what it does and how it accomplishes it. It's a personal favorite in the comedy and horror category, and it's a movie from the 2000s that I can always go back to for a fun time.