Zombieland is really two movies, one good, one kinda bad. Luckily, the good half is so great it makes up for the failings of the other half.
The film tells the story of a world overrun by zombies. Apparently, Mad Cow disease was way more fatal here than it was in real life. Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a video game playing virgin college student, trying to get to his Ohio home from his college in Texas. Along the way, he meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a man who is after two things;killing as many zombies as he can and the last twinkie on Earth. Both men meet up with two grifter sisters named Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and they all travel to California together.
Since it is a zombie comedy, people compare this film to Shaun of the Dead. But it really isn't the same. Zombieland is more nihilistic. The laughs are here, but it's more about survival than anything else. You get the feeling that these people are the only ones left on Earth.
The direction is great and innovative. Slow-motion is this film's friend, and is used for the zombie stripper sequence (yes, there is a zombie stripper in this film) and other places. Columbus comes up with rules, and the words of the rules appear on screen and interact with the action that is going on. And there is a cameo by a huge movie star playing himself in the middle, and the fact that he is written into the script is a bold movie by the writers.
The gore content is amped up to a high level, as you would expect from a zombie film. A zombie actually breaks a leg in half to drink the marrow. That is impressive. And these are the fast running zombies, which some zombie fans do not like.
Of course, there are flaws, major flaws. The rules involving how people succumb to the disease is never truly explained. In one scene, Columbus comforts a neighbor who was bitten. She naps for a few minutes, yet wakes up a zombie. So, you get the idea it takes a bit of time to turn. But in the opening credits, a bunch of kids, a bride on her wedding day, and, yes, the stripper who appears to be at work are all shown as being zombiefied, and the change seems to have happened almost instantaneously. This confusion might not seem like all that big of a deal, but it is a bit concerning to fans of the genre.
Tallahassee spends half the movie being a badass zombie killer. This, of course, makes him a cool character and one we root for. He has a bunch of character quirks that define him as they do all the other characters. However, halfway through the movie, he gets a flashback that adds an air of tragedy to his backstory. This changes the whole dimension of the character, his motivations and why he does what he does. he becomes more fleshed out and more believeable. He goes from a kickass zombie slayer to a tortured human being and his character goes from being a fun diversion to being the best part about the whole movie.
Unfortunately, the other characters, even Columbus, doesn't get the same treatment. Even though Columbus is our narrator and our focal point, we are drawn more to Tallahassee because we know more about him.
And the film's climax is brought about by a tactic that I find very annoying, the one Roger Ebert calls "The Idiot Plot". It's where the plot would not be advanced if the characters do not act like idiots. It is established that the zombies are attracted to light and sound. So, what do two of what were the smartest characters in film up to this point do? They break in to an abandoned Disneyland-esque amusement park and turn on all the rides, providing a lot of loud music, gear rattling and flashing lights to attract the zombies. In other words, they acted like idiots.
But even this was not enough to ruin my overall feeling towards the movie. The parts that worked and showed wit and inventiveness were enough to push to like it in spite of all its flaws.
