Zombieland

Title: Zombieland
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Action, Comedy, Horror
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone
Director: Ruben Fleischer

Perhaps it was the healthy dose of drink ingested during the film, or perhaps it was the company I kept (though my money’s on the booze), despite a pessimistic prediction for yet another Hollywood comedy hot on the heels of the hugely disappointing flourish of seemingly endless teen comedies, my arm was sufficiently twisted into enduring the torture. Except for all my preconceptions, this played out more like ‘Shaun of the Dead’ than another overrated ‘Superbad,’ and whilst not without its flaws surprisingly succeeded where it needed to, creating humour without relying on repeating the same joke.

A plot description feels almost superfluous as the concept has been done multiple times before, and the notion of a world filled with zombies with only a few stragglers is not one that warrants particular explanation, and seeing as the nonsensical plot revolves around our characters travelling, it’s perhaps best to move on abruptly. No, it is instead the unconventional characters themselves that maintains the interest; the entirely un-heroic computer nerd narrator called Columbus (Eisenberg) who through ritual and rules (one in fact being “don’t be a hero”) has somehow managed to survive this long, teaming up with a Twinkie loving, gung-ho cowboy called Tallahassee (Harrelson) and eventually the two sisters of deception (Stone and Breslin) who cheat and con their way through life.

All of the characters are poorly developed and are never capable of evoking any real sympathy, but this never remains a particular issue as no real empathy is strived for (unless we take Harrelson attempt at crying seriously, as opposed to another joke), and whilst under most circumstances the characters single dimension would quickly feel mundane and uninteresting, the humour doesn’t arise from the manner they interact with one another, but rather the manner the interact with the zombie menace. These cliché characters are thrust into an unusual situation and each of the three sides demonstrate their own unique manner of surviving, from Columbus’ rules on seat-belts to Tallahassee’s brilliant but ruthless quest for destruction, often choosing to bludgeon his enemies with whatever happens to be at hand, the result is highly stylised but nonetheless entertaining to watch.

Sadly, there are still issues that detract from the story that are simply too difficult to ignore, not in the least the decision to conveniently overlook obvious plot details in order to create a humorous setup; the rides that magically operate themselves, or the fact that all a theme park’s power is housed in an annex (and hence built as an addition later). Then there’s the tedious and mind numbing romance element that felt obvious and cliché before the character had been properly introduced. This isn’t a particularly smart comedy, relying almost entirely on slapstick humour involving the convenient abundance of zombies, and much of the story is fairly nonsensical to the point it requires you to dull the majority of your brain cells for the proceedings, but if you manage to ignore the love interest and shut your mind off for the plot, the result is probably one of the more amusing films to have emerged in recent years. Definitely one to be taken with a pinch of salt (and a shot of tequila).