Film Review: Zombieland

Dead of the 'Zombieland' class

By KYLE SMITH
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/
October 2, 2009

LOOK on the bright side of an America turned “Zombieland”: bothersome gun restrictions no longer applicable. No more reading your friends’ Facebook status updates. And whenever the post-apocalypse blues get you down, you can just head on down to the nearest tchotchke shop and break some crap.

Woody Harrelson (it’s been far too long since we’ve seen him in anything good) plays a zombie killer with an array of interesting and useful weapons. His mousy sidekick (Jesse Eisenberg, last seen in “Adventureland”) hopes to get a contact high from the excess testosterone. They make an excellent comedy duo — metal meets marshmallow — as two of the last survivors in a junk-strewn wasteland after the zombies have taken over. What’s left of this country? Not to terrify anyone, but it looks almost as bad as the produce aisle of your neighborhood deli at 3 am.

Eisenberg’s never-been-kissed geek is called “Columbus” because that’s where he’s from — Harrelson is “Tallahassee.” Columbus has managed to leverage his video-game skills and Math Club eye for detail into an unlikely ability to survive the onslaught of undead humans who rampage through the countryside as rudely as an army of Kanyes.

Tallahassee agrees to take on Columbus as a partner in a 24/7 zombie-killin’ rodeo. Their quests are twofold; Columbus wants to get home, whereas Tallahassee just wants to find the world’s last surviving box of Twinkies. Both of them aren’t sure what to make of a pair of sisters (Emma Stone of “Superbad,” Abigail Breslin from “Little Miss Sunshine”) they meet up with on the road.

Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have a fond “Men in Black" approach to sending up zombie flicks while respecting the conventions. Columbus realizes the first rule of survival is "cardio" -- helpful when trying to out-sprint, for instance, flesh-craving little girls in princess outfits with gore hanging out of their mouths. He always looks in the back seat and warns, "Don't get all stingy with your bullets."

Tallahassee, meanwhile, likes to wander into grocery stores and stir up the Z's with a little banjo music. While he's got gardening shears stuck in his pants. He's "in the ass-kickin' business and business is good." Despite many setbacks on the road to finding a spongy little treat, he serves notice that, "This Twinkie thang -- it ain't over yet."

Director Ruben Fleischer keeps up a frantic pace as the screenplay chomps through the pop-culture references. (Contemplating a lost loved one, Tallahassee says, "I haven't cried like that since 'Titanic.' ") Midway through the movie, one of the all-time great unbilled celebrity cameos is all the funnier for its randomness.

Though both female characters are underwritten and the movie ends too soon, after a routinely action-packed final act that isn't as fresh as the rest, "Zombieland" is still the funniest broad comedy since "The Hangover." Its yowling, marching, munching corpses are as scary as grad students and as hilarious as the plot of "G.I. Joe."