It’s hard to expect zombies to sound like a lot of fun. “Shaun of the Dead” was funny but not quite fun. “Dawn of the Dead” threatened to be fun but its style just didn’t lend to it. In the genre, the trend is usually aimed more for blood, less for laughs. More guts, less gut busting. You get it.
“Zombieland” breaks genre boundaries. While there is plenty of gore and flesh-eating, there are even more laughs. Woody Harrelson stars as the gun-toting Tallahassee, a tough guy on a mission to find one more Twinkie in the post-apocalyptic world. While driving down the highway in his Cadillac Escalade, he meets up with Columbus, played wonderfully by Jesse Eisenberg (of “Adventureland” fame), a Texas college student trying to head home to Columbus, Ohio.
This whole movie works because of the relationship between Tallahassee and Columbus and the ways they constantly play off of each other. Tallahassee does before he thinks; Columbus is the opposite. Tallahassee reluctantly grows to like Columbus, who he constantly reminds to “nut up or shut up.” Additionally, Columbus lives by a set of zombified rules —and they appear throughout the movie. While it sounds like it could be annoying, first-time director Ruben Fleischer handles this, with everything else, so well. It only adds to the movie, never detracts.
Of course, the presence of good-girls-gone-bad Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin, as Wichita and Little Rock, respectively, adds the final touch to the movie. Wichita and Little Rock are constantly trying to con the other two out of supplies, cars and everything else they can get their hands on after first meeting them in a zombie-filled supermarket. It goes downhill from there.
On the whole, Fleischer has made a hugely entertaining movie with a good cast and good effects that are never over the top. There are some pretty disgusting moments (a woman in the middle of the street eating someone’s intestines, to start) but there are even some poignant moments. It’s the perfect mix of emotions at a fast pace (the whole movie clocks in at about 90 minutes, if that). Plus there’s a cameo right in the middle!
“Zombieland” is on its way to becoming a classic in the genre, and will stand alongside any of Romero’s zombie movies proudly. Now, one can only hope that Fleischer can achieve perfection the next time around.