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Friday
Oct022009

I follow the rules and survive ZOMBIELAND

DateFriday, October 2, 2009 at 3:06PM | AuthorWill LeBlanc

Zombieland takes no time to let you know how awesome it's going to be, so I'm not going to waste any time NOT telling you how awesome it truly was.

The film opens on a scene of utter destruction in Washington, DC with a voice over from Jesse Eisenberg's Columbus filling us in on his rules for surviving in Z-land. You may have seen the clips explaining the Bowling Ball, Buddy System, and Iron Skillet rules, but none of those rules go in to effect in quite as immediate a fashion as Rule #1: Cardio. Columbus displays his mastering of rule #1 swimmingly just after barely escaping a zombie attack by following rule #3: Beware of Bathrooms, a hard rule to follow with his irritable bowel syndrome.

Columbus is hoofing it across the entire damn country to Ohio, where he hopes to meet up with his family, who are probably just as goopy and bite marky as everyone else this side of the Mississipi, when he meets the Han Solo to his Luke Skywalker, Tallahassee played by the genius in a cowboy hat Woody Harrelson. Harrelson also appeared in the 2012 trailer beforehand, and again I still maintain that he should just be in everything. When our new team of heroes meet up with the sisterly duo of Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin (as Wichita and Little Rock) the family heads west towards Pacific Playland which is supposedly zombie free.

And that's about it. It's essentially a road trip comedy, with zombies. This may seem like a weird thing to mention first, but the typography used in the movie really looks great and is hysterical each and every time it appears. Rule #18: Limber Up, appears on screen as Columbus limbers up, and the text is also limbering up. It was hard not to laugh. Rule #2: Double Tap squirts out of just about every zombie that Columbus blasts or Tallahassee lovingly runs over once the backs over to finish the job. It all looks like it's part of the scene and adds all sorts of fun with no distraction. Plus, the opening credits are really awesome too.

The Oscar ballots obviously aren't going to be flying in by the owl load with Eisenberg and Harrelson written all over them with exclamation points and hearts filling up all the blank space, but all four actors showed up, did their job and did it really well. Harrelson, who you can probably tell I am ok with giving hand jobs to with the power of my written word, was straight up hilarious and believably emotional during the films one very short but ultimately touching cry baby scene. As much as I don't think the world needs another version of an actor that I'm already starting to get sick of (ahem...Michael Cera...ahem), Jesse Eisenberg stepped up to the plate and did a pretty solid job doing what he does best, being awkward around girls.

The zombie's looked solid. I mean, I've been watching zombie movies for like 15 years now, so they pretty much all look the same, and they've been making zombie movies since 1932 when Karloff played the Mummy so 77 years later they've got a pretty good handle on how to make a zombie look good.

The only thing about Zombieland that felt a little tedious was the love story between Columbus and Wichita. Wichita trying so hard to be tough the whole time wasn't distracting but occassionally a little annoying which made me want to reach through the screen Last Action Hero style and smack her a couple of times and just tell her to get over herself. It threw a wrench in the gears of romance that really just prevented the wholly obvious and inevitable from happening, so just let it happen and be different instead of delaying the inevitable just like every other movie who veils their relationships with trivial bullshit.

Zombieland was action packed and a barrel of laughs which let me put a very enthusaistic check mark next to the first Fall Movie Preview film that I got to see. Director Ruben Fleischer knocked his first major motion picture out of the park. I'm hopeful we'll see him do even more unique and fun things with the horror comedy genre. Hell I'd even take a sequel to this. Why not, really. Big fun, great laughs, and who doesn't love a good zombie.

4.5 stars

Comment8 Comments | | tagged , , , , , , ,

Reader Comments (8)

I was nervous it was going to suck, because I really wanted to see it but it looked semi-lame at times. Really glad it's a solid film. I'll be seeing it this weekend for sure. :D

Nice review, too! <3

October 2, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterSteve

The slow-motion zombie scenes at the begining are awesome! I wish they would have done a few with some "bullet time" freeze shots.

October 2, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterMonty

I'll have to catch this in Pittsburgh I suppose.

October 2, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterMetiphis

Sweet review. This is like the 2nd movie on my priorities right now, where the wild things are first, but after that ill definitely be checking this one out hopefully.

October 3, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterAaron

I loved it, and I didn't feel like any part of it was tedious at all. Even the second time through I was just as enthralled with everything that was happening. It was all just good times. Also disagree with the zombies looking good, there was something about them that just seemed rushed in the makeup room, there weren't bad, just wish they were better, I loved the vomit and bile aspect of them though, it was a nice touch and kinda made up for my distaste of the other part of the makeup. Props on the awesome review :P

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