Zombieland (2009) (rated 15)

Director – Ruben Fleischer

Staring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin

Running Time – 88 minutes

There are people who will argue that the humble zombie movie allows filmmakers to make subversive comments on contemporary society that cannot be made in mainstream films. Dawn of the Dead, for instance, used the swarms of undead congregating at a shopping mall to make a statement about the consumerist society. Shawn of the Dead, while establishing the zom-com genre, used the pub for a similar purpose.

Zombieland refuses to go down this road. It also doesn’t head for the all out blood and guts route either. More than anything it verges into the Bromance territory, where the two mismatched male leads overcome their differences and bond on a road trip through America.

Don’t for any second think that this is a boring touchy-feeling movie. It does its best to be a non-stop comedy action romp that is as ground breaking as a jelly drill. The action is set in a post-apocalyptic United States where mutated Mad-Cow Disease has led to most of the remaining population turning into blood dripping, flesh eating zombies. Oprah (you know you’re famous when your name is accepted by MS Word’s dictionary), this is where you should say I told you so.

The central character, known only as Columbus, his home town, is a university geek whose life of World of Warcraft and takeaway pizza is interrupted by the end of the human race. Played by Jesse Eisenberg, he is the kind of nervous, self conscious teen that you expect from a member of the ‘looks a bit like that guy from Juno’ school of actors.

He has survived the Zombie onslaught by sticking to a set of rules that are helpfully CGIed on screen at the start, then irritatingly CGIed later on. We also discover that, conforming to the rules of zombie films, being infection zombies, they are running and mildly intelligent rather than the slow swarms of the undead kind.

While walking along a highway, he encounters Tallahassee (Harrelson), a man with just two aims in life: causing as much zombie death as possible and finding a Twinkie Bar. A no-nonsense killing machine with a bizarre collection of improvised weaponry, his gung-ho approach to life contrasts with Columbus’s. It’s like they are the original odd-couple, if you ignore all the other original odd-couples in film history.

Along the way they encounter teen con woman Wichita (Stone), and her younger sister Little Rock (Breslin). After getting off on the wrong foot a few times, they make their way to Los Angeles and a theme park for the requisite climatic set piece splatterthon.

The film has much to recommend it. The script is snappy, with some amusing pop culture references, such as the Twinkies, and Little Rock trying to explain to Tallahassee about Hannah Montana. It balances the zombie killing with the road trip elements of the four characters learning to trust each other in a world where trust died out along with vegetarianism. Some of the methods that Tallahassee uses to kill zombies are inventive enough that it doesn’t get samey. It does include one of the best uses of a banjo in 21st century cinema.

When Bill Murray turns up for a brief and almost film stealing cameo it merely adds to the feeling that this is a simple, fun, movie that just sets out to entertain.

The visuals, CGI rules recap aside, with abandoned vehicles abound, add to the desolate setting of the film. The actors' humanity and the sense of fun from the filmmakers actually make this mildly life affirming.

The story arrives at its natural conclusion before it runs out of ideas or the zombie killing gets tiresome. At less than 90 minutes long it is refreshingly short. Yes it is never going to win awards or make you think hard about the true meaning of life, but I sat there with a smile throughout the whole film. You can’t say fairer than that.

The_Jon_M

02.11.09 Front Page

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