Zombieland Movie Review
Posted on | October 7, 2009 |
In the comedy horror flick Zombieland the majority of humans have been infected by a virus that turns everyone into flesh-craving zombies. Of the humans that remain is Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg (Roger Dodger, The Village), a student at the University of Texas trying to make his way to his home town of Columbus, OH, where he hopes his parents are still alive.
Columbus has long been an outsider and somewhat phobic, which he uses to his advantage in avoiding zombies. Columbus encounters Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers, Kingpin, No Country for Old Men), driving an Escalade.
He is trying to get to Florida and kill as many zombies as he can on the way. Tallahassee agrees to give Columbus a ride as far as Texarkana. When they stop at a grocery store they find two teenage girls, Wichita (Emma Stone (Superbad)) and her younger sister, Little Rock (Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) in the store room.
Zombieland marks the first major staring role of Jesse Eisenberg as a perpetually awkward, funny and lovable teen who many are, rightfully so, comparing to Michael Cera. In a recent appearance on the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, Jesse spoke of being mistaken for Napolean Dynamite consistently on the NYC streets, and asking a prior director how to kiss another human. He delivers these stories in a fidgety dialog fashion similar to the character Columbus, which leads us to believe, like Cera, his on screen mannerisms are not a stretch from his day to day persona.
Woody Harrelson is absolutely fantastic in his role and delivers brutal Zombie beatings and hysterical one-liners. Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin hold their own within the realm of the film however you may find yourself making character comparisons to their prior big hit work. It’s best to try to avoid this for full viewing enjoyment.
The picture is light and not to be taken seriously or in any critical sense. It’s funny beyond the norm of genre and - the cool part, of course - wonderfully disgusting. The dialogue in Zombieland is so witty and humorous that even if the zombies were taken out of the picture you would still be left with a highly amusing comedy. It’s one of the year’s most purely pleasurable entertainments.
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October 8th, 2009 @ 11:15 am
Great review! I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see this movie at first, but was lucky enough to get to go a free screening and LOVED it! And I’m glad to see that critics are really enjoying it too!