Movie Review: Zombieland (2009)

There are rules to living in a place like Zombieland, and lucky for us, one of the few humans left standing at the end of the world, a neurotic young college kid named Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has them written all down. Those of us who are particularly doomed once there's no more room in Hell: The fat, the emotional, the heroic, and the ones who don't buckle up. If you can't bear to launch your grandmother through the windsheild of your stolen Cadillac Escalade, what good are you as humanity's last hope?

As it turns out, there are some people in Zombieland who don't obsessively keep a list of rules, and they've been doing just fine for themselves. Columbus first runs across Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), whose only rule in life is to enjoy the little things. Little things include raging on zombies, destroying formerly private property, and Twinkies, which are in stunningly short supply in this brave new world. Columbus and Tallahassee happen upon Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), two sisters who've made their living by pulling jobs on gullible guys like poor, hapless Columbus.

After the tension between the four subsides, our heroes head West to California, where Wichita and Little Rock hope to capture the innocence of a time before zombies by going to Pacific Playland. Going to a place with a lot of lights and noise and movement doesn't sound like the smartest thing to do in the midst of zombie Armageddon, and it isn't, but a carnival sounds like one heck of a place to kill a bunch of zombies, and it is.

But Pacific Playland isn't really the point of the movie, as Columbus, at various points in time, takes us away from the road trip and the zombie killing to give us little bits and pieces about who these people were before America became Zombieland. All four of them have trust issues: Columbus spent most of his life as a loner and only realized how valuable other people were once they started trying to eat him, Wichita and Little Rock have gotten by on lying, and Tallahassee doesn't have a reason for living outside of Twinkies and the elusive Zombie Kill of the Week award, and while it might seem obvious to somebody sitting in the theater that sticking together is the smart thing to do, one of Columbus' rules is to not get attached to anybody, and those rules are the only thing keeping him alive.

This is a very funny movie, maybe even the funniest of the year. The comparison to Shaun of the Dead is about as easy as it is incorrect, as the combination of zombies and comedy are about all they have in common. It's not even this movie's American sensibilities. Shaun of the Dead involved family and friends sticking together, about the unassuming sap at the center of the film finding his purpose. Zombieland is maybe a bit nihilistic in comparison. Four strangers come together, and all four of them have their reasons for living, but what happens when Tallahassee gets his Twinkie? The humans in this movie go on living just because it's better than the alternative.

And that's a nice change of pace. There is no false weightiness to any of the characters, and nobody ever mentions that they may be humanity's last hope. Everybody is too worried about their own skin to bother with saving humanity. There is no good or bad military force concerned with salvation or turning a profit, no dubious scientists who "accidentally" released a deadly bio-weapon into the air, and no half-witted attempt at social-mindedness. Zombie movies, for the most part, lost their capacity to reflect on society's ills the minute that biker gang started throwing pies at the undead in George Romero's unsurpassed Dawn of the Dead. It's nice that this movie, at least on the surface, wants nothing more than to make you laugh and gross you out a little, and surprising when, at the end of the movie, all of the characters involved seem plausible and well-rounded.

Maybe the third act, where a horde of the undead are killed in various gruesome, amusement park themed ways is a little disappointing in comparison to the spectacular middle section, but that's a small complaint. I probably wouldn't have even noticed the slight drop in comedy had it not been for the film's special guest, who steals the show without being the only thing worth talking about when the credits roll. Though it's probably public knowledge at this point, I won't spoil who the guest is like I did with the people I saw the movie with. It's something that's funnier if you go in unspoiled, but those bastards made fun of me for seeing Twilight, and thus earned my wrath.


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