Review: Zombieland

Colombia Pictures

For a moment there, it seemed as if first time filmmaker Ruben Fleischer was showing Quentin Tarantino that he's not the only person who can copy Sergio Leone westerns. But then just as quickly, Zombieland abandons the modern Western in an undead world motif (seen: John Carpenter's Vampires, From Dusk till Dawn), and becomes its own thing, which actually turns out pretty good.

Horror comedy is a tricky genre as it is. Wringing laughs from horror and murder and death and gore is not a popular thing among the people, and is hard to do, especially for an extended period of time. It helps to add another element to help stretch things out (like the romantic comedy element of Shaun of the Dead), and while the filmmakers threatened to make this added element spaghetti western, it actually became more of a coming of age type of deal.

The main character is nerdy, socially awkward, World of Warcraft addict Columbus, played by Jesse Eisenberg who goes from Adventureland to Zombieland, and seems to be making a nice little career out of doing the movies Michael Cera didn't have time for. The Cera Runoff Effect, if you all. He has a voice over that runs throughout the whole movie from front to back, and it's pretty good. It's used to convey a decent amount of information, and is also used as a vehicle to offer up a handful of rules in humorous fashion (such as rule # 7 - Limber up). He meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson, No Country For Old Men), a wild man of a Zombie killer on an endless hunt for Twinkies (actually, the product placement is pretty intense in this movie. Escalades, Hummers, Hostess Twinkies and Snoballs, World of Warcraft, Mountain Dew, Bill Murray Movies, it's all in there. But perhaps in a "remnants of a world lost" sort of way, like the use of Coca-Cola in Cormac McCarthy's The Road). Columbus and Tallahassee band together for what they plan to be a short amount of time. And of course, an unlikely friendship forms over the course of the movie. They run into a pair of sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone, Superbad) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine), and this is a little confusing, because if each person is named from the city they are from, why are the sisters from two different cities? In retrospect, they never specified whether it was simply hometowns or birth cities, but that's a minor quibble.

A slightly bigger quibble is a scene where the foursome comes across an abandoned Indian Casino, and after a little bit of walking around and trying on different hats and perfumes in a gift shop, they spontaneously decide to let off some steam by destroying the many items in the gift shop, all of them Indian themed. While a fun and well shot scene of playful destruction, one has to wonder how American Indians would feel about a scene of their heritage being gratuitously destroyed in slow motion, all filmed like a music video. Is this like the product placement? Was this inadvertent or is there deeper meaning to this? They could have pulled up to any number of locations, but the writers' chose an Indian Casino, and they chose to show four white people stomp around a gift shop and wreck Indian imagery. Okay, that's a pretty big quibble, depending on your point of view. I just found it odd, but I'm sure if they rolled up somewhere representing my heritage and destroyed it for no real good reason, then it might effect me more.

As it was, the movie's biggest strength was also the movie's biggest weakness, and that was the time devoted to the four characters. By not developing these people at all, they would have rendered the action scenes inert because there's possible way to empathize with hollow characters. But the time is spent to show who these people are and glimpses of where they come from, so when they are in danger in the end and have to save each other, it actually means more. However, this is a horror comedy, and as a horror comedy, the pacing suffers a bit from the few heavy moments of drama that they throw in (products of the "coming of age" element). It's all goofy, splattery fun, with plenty or irony and satire and then pow! gut punch of drama, sucking the air out of the room. It doesn't help that drama-comedy is a tricky genre, too, and it's hard for someone to have it both ways when making a movie, finding that balance between the two. So horror-comedy-drama? Good Lord that's hard. These guys do a pretty damn good job for the most part, but it wasn't perfect. Then again, what movie is perfect?

Zombieland is pretty awesome though. The voice over and various rules gives the whole thing a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy type of feel, and there are some sweet musical selections throughout the movie, like Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" during the opening credits. Mr. Harrelson is pretty great as Tallahassee, and Mr. Eisenberg is appropriately nerdy and awkward as Columbus. For the most part the movie is a really good time, and though it gets really violent and gory, a lot of that is muted by the fact that 95% of the blood in the movie is obviously digital and many of the hardest, most grueling hits of the movie are digitally faked. There is definitely something to be said for actual squibs and the use of on-set practical effects. Overall, Zombieland is sweet, and while the zombie movie well has been run pretty dry recently, it is nice to see that someone can still use the genre in a pretty smart way without being totally derivative.