It’s Bill ******* Murray. Sorry if that ain’t your middle name.
Its safe to say that there is a new genre now called Horror comedy and this film re-asserts the fact that watching zombies get killed is almost as funny as anything you would ever see on the big screen. This is America’s answer to Shaun of the Dead (Simon Pegg). Zombieland not only delivers the laughs but also makes sure its consistent enough till the very end.
The storyline is something you have heard or seen a zillion times. The entire world is hit with an apocalyptic infection that turns people into zombies once they have been bitten by an infected zombie. Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) is a young geek who has a lot of phobias about almost everything from clowns, to bathrooms, to checking the back seat of cars. Being alone and scared of the outside world has kept him alive. To survive, Columbus has begun making a long list of rules to survive. Each time he gives you one of his rules, you see an example of his rule in action. He decides to go home to Columbus, Ohio to see if his parents are still alive. Along the highway, he meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) a redneck zombie killer who has this crazy craze to have Twinkies. They team up and head for Tallahassee. On the way they meet and join forces with two girls, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abagail Breslin) who screw around with them robbing them of everything before willing to leave the trust issues aside and trying to survive.
Zombieland has the things zombie-movie lovers go for first and foremost, which are really effective looking un-dead, some genuine scares and some really solid action. But it’s first and foremost a comedy, one that is focused on character and wit and surprise and ingenuity over just satire, and it fires on all cylinders. I don’t think I’ve had this much pure fun at a movie in a while, and its all due to newcomer director Ruben Fleischer who I think has made a horror comedy classic. Since we believe in the world they’re in, pretty much, we kinda get sold at whatever they talk. The movie reaches a point where I thought how could it get even more funnier, thats when Columbus enters a Haunted house show at the Amusement Park and things just went up a notch.
From its opening credits sequence that promises as much and gives an impression of its tone like none other this year, to the odd-couple bond between Eisenberg and Harrelson that works so well, to that nearly quirky/awesome way that Columbus faces his fear of clowns while re-writing his own rule on heroics. It’s so sharp and original a take on a subject nearly beaten to death that its success just shows the potential still there. George Romero keeps making Zombie killing humans kind of movies every year, but they are all serious. For a change, its fun to see humans killing the zombies and that too with lots of cool comic and action sequences. In the end, I think everyone should realize that the movie ain’t about the zombies, its about the people and its always have been like that.
If you want to have an 80 minute non-stop laugh and have a blast at the movies this week, Zombieland is my pick of the week.
