Review of Zombieland (2009) by Stevenf — 31 Mar 2013

Finally something has come along to rival the brilliance of Shaun of the Dead. Zombieland stars Jesse Eisenberg, Wood Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin as they embark on finding a safe zone away from their post-apocalyptic nightmare, but all the trouble isn't necessarily from the undead.

Eisenberg narrates an ingenious script, outlining different ways to stay alive, such cardio, in other words out-running the undead, all these 'rules' run throughout the film and are simply hilarious, another being to enjoy the little things of there no longer being any rules on earth.

Each character is never properly named in the film, instead being named after where they are from or going to, Eisenberg is Columbus, who runs into Tallahassee (Harrelson), a larger than life man who appears to have been anticipating such an occurrence, he is longing for a Twinkie, and will not stop bashing the heads of obese zombies until he finds one.

They run into Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin) who are con artists, and quite good at it. They manage to steal the two mens truck, but it is short lived and they all end up embarking on a journey to Pacific Playland in LA, allegedly free of zombies.

Zombieland combines all the apocalyptic elements of a zombie film but sweetens the film with excellent comedy and wonderfully timed acting.

Harrelson is brilliant as Tallahassee who is endlessly searching for the one Twinkie, but he also holds a different secret that is torturing him inside. The only performance to rival is brilliant and comedic turn was that of Bill Murray, who has an out of this world cameo as himself, it is just laughter perfection.

It raises the barrier and takes away the doom and gloom for a while and almost seems to fulfil a bucket list type film that shows what people would like to think they would do when the world was plunged into chaos, wreck shops, steal cars etc.

The film doesn't change anything in regards to the genre itself, but its brings forward a ver welcome attempt to humorously describe how different people may react to such an occurrence.

Definitely one of the standout comedies in a while, one that has the heart and soul of characters but with a very surreal genre of how this development comes around, and of course a wonderfully funny Bill Murray cameo.