IF EVER there was a movie that wanted?no, begged?to not be taken seriously, that would be ?Zombieland.? Funny, gory, and so adrenaline-pumping that you?ll be on a high hours after it?s over?it?s a hoot from start to finish.
The first feature film from director Ruben Fleischer clocks in at less than 90 minutes, but not a second is wasted. It?s packed with all the bloody bits you?d expect from a zombie movie, along with generous bursts of humor, zany characters, and one of the best celebrity cameos in recent memory.
The film manages to rise above the ranks of zombie comedies?popularly known as ?zomcoms??due mainly to the fast, can?t-catch-your-breath pacing, hilarious one-liners, and the spot-on performances of the cast. Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin take center-stage here, along with hundreds of staggering, foaming-at-the-mouth zombies.
Infection
In ?Zombieland,? some kind of plague has transformed most of humanity into crazed, flesh-eating monstrosities. Very few manage to escape infection. This includes our story?s narrator, a skinny and nerdy lad (Eisenberg) whose rules on how to survive Zombieland (formerly known as planet Earth) constitute a running gag that helps string the movie together.
Everyone?s motivation is simple: Survival. Our garrulous narrator, dubbed Columbus (characters here take up place nicknames), is making his way back home from Texas to his family. He hooks up with the swaggering, zombie-terminator expert, Tallahassee (Harrelson), who cheerfully slashes and blows up zombie after zombie.
They find other survivors?Wichita (Stone) and her little sister, Little Rock (Breslin). Then, they realize there?s more to each of them than it would seem.
While all the actors look like they had fun making the movie, no one seems to be enjoying himself more than Harrelson, whose colorful, redneck-ish, ?nut up or shut up? character is an absolute laugh.
Scriptwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick take a fresh approach to the whole let?s-run-from-zombies shtick. ?Zombieland? will take you on a wild ride that you won?t want to miss.
