Review of Zombieland (2009) by Milesl — 08 Oct 2009

Zombieland was an utter failure. Saying that it was bad or tired or bland or uninteresting doesn't go far enough in expressing how poor a film it is; it flat-out fails on every generic level which could arguably be ascribed to it.

It's not quite a road movie, it's about half of a teen comedy, and it's miles fucking away from what could be considered a proper, or even satirical, zombie flick. It seemed like nothing so much as a desperate attempt to cash in on a niche trope that's experienced something of a renaissance in recent years; the filmmakers obviously had no love for nor understanding of the things that make the genre great.

Everything that made Shaun of the Dead so smart and sharp is missing, and what you're left with is a nutless 90 minutes that sort of disinterestedly wanders toward a conclusion without a sense of its own narrative stakes.

Which is pretty appropriate, actually, because Zombieland doesn't have stakes. To have stakes you have to follow your film's internal logic, play by the rules you've set out yourself. It never even comes close.

There's a cameo smack in the middle of the film that's good for ~10 minutes of chuckles, but the rest is basically filler. In a bad zombie movie, you're at least due some good gruesome fun, but Zombieland doesn't even deliver in that department.

And the gratuitous use of the Z-word (and the movie's title, which I think is repeated two or three dozen times) drove me fucking batty.