Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
9/26/09
As
I've said more than once here, our favorite genres become like close friends.
We're always happy to see them, never tire of hearing them tell the same
stories again and again and feel comfortable teasing them about things
we'd never think were funny about a stranger. How else to explain
a movie like Zombieland, which thinks the devolution of the human
race into flesh-hungry rabid maniacs is pretty damn hilarious, or, more
importantly, the fact that it's right? Knowing both the zombie and
apocalypse genres well enough to rib the living daylights out of both,
Ruben Fleisher's delightful action comedy collects a perfectly matched
quartet of characters and asks them not only to survive in the face of
planetary doom, but also to contemplate the purpose in their lives in a
humanity-free vacuum. As smart as it is gross (and believe me, it's
plenty gross), Zombieland barely makes a single wrong step in a
brilliantly audacious 90-minutes that might be the most optimistic, cheerful
movie ever made about the end of the world.
A young
man we know only as Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) narrates, and he's got some
bad news: just two weeks after a single tainted hamburger caused
Man Cow Disease to become Mad Human Disease, the world is overrun with
zombies. Only a very few humans survive by lurking in the shadows
and following a few critical rules. Columbus has 32, but among the
most important are the value of cardio, never shooting a zombie once when
you can shoot it twice, always wearing your seatbelt, avoiding bathrooms
and never, EVER being a hero. One reason he's able to stick so rigorously
to his code is that the socially awkward kid was never actually part of
human society even before we all started eating each other. He puts
his anti-social tendencies on hold upon meeting a fellow traveler, a zombie-killing
expert who calls himself Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson). The two take
to the road, where the kid dreams of getting back to his hometown and finding
his parents while the elder hunter simply hopes to track down and eat one
more Twinkie. While searching for the Hostess treat in a zombie-infested
supermarket, they come upon two more survivors, Wichita (Emma Stone) and
her sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). The girls were con artists
even before the plague came, and they trick the guys out of not one, but
two trucks. But their common enemy inspires a truce, and the guys
agree to come along to check out the rumors that the Pacific Playland amusement
park has somehow remained a Zombie Free Zone. Stopping over in Hollywood,
they enjoy an idylic respite in the home of a Major Hollywood Star (who
plays himself, and that's all you're getting out of me). Being the
last available man on Earth just might give Columbus a shot with a girl
like Wichita, unless one of them remembers that it was traveling alone
that allowed them to survive this long. Either way, all roads lead
to Pacific Playland, and does this really strike you as the kind of movie
that's going to feature a zombie-free amusement park?
Me
either, because from its' delightfully twisted opening shot, Zombieland
LOVES its' zombies. Actually loves them a little too much to ever
make them truly scary, but zombie buffs missing chills will still get a
kick out of the sheer variety and repulsive execution of the rabid fiends,
whose primary physical feature is that there's blood running, caking and
spewing from their mouths at all times. Sticklers will point out
that these aren't actually Romero Zombies, both because they're sprinters
(as in Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead) and because they're not actually
dead, just hopelessly infected with a revolting, heinous disease.
There is one exception to the generally low level of true horror, a creepy
flashback sequence where Columbus recalls his first brush with the plague,
a beautiful girl he knew only by her room number, 406 (Amber Heard), who
shows up pounding on his door looking for shelter after being attacked.
A dream come true, she falls asleep in his arms, but he awakens the next
morning face-to-face with a flesh-eating ghoul who chases him around his
apartment. Heard is outstanding in this scene, tentative enough to
show us that the bloodlust is as confusing to her as to Columbus this early
in the game, but also unnatural enough to show that he's going to have
no choice but to kill her. That disturbing incident aside, Zombieland
isn't really about the horror of the Zombie Apocalypse, rather the fact
that, since it's already happened, might as well have some fun kicking
zombie ass. And a movie that has its' characters competing for “Zombie
Kill of the Week” has no trouble running down, decapitating, blowing up
and generally squishing them in every way imaginable.
Fleischer
and writers Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick are putting on a show here,
and they use every kind of narrative slight of hand they can think of to
keep the laughs coming. Every time one of Columbus' Rules comes into
play, we hear the ding of a bell and the number and rule in question pops
back up on screen. Or whenever it helps make their point, they'll
send us off to watch a few extras enact some illustrative zombie-on-human
or human-on-zombie violence (loved the clever old lady who drops a piano
on one of them). And that celebrity cameo pit stop is truly inspired,
both rephrasing Dawn of the Dead's 70's shopping mall commentary
in contemporary celebrity terms and coming up with a half-dozen insane
gags to take advantage of the incongruity of someone playing themselves
under these circumstances (it makes Tom Petty leading a post-apocalyptic
human colony in The Postman seem positively normal). The filmmakers
also manage to tap the great action potential of the amusement park, which
combines all manner of light-and-sound production values with a collection
of machines designed to throw and spin people (and zombies) around.
Best of all is the chase through the park's Haunted House attraction, which
gets a whole lot more realistic when it's got real zombies in it.
But
for all of Zombieland's satirical and action creativity, what really
makes it shine are the characters. Columbus is one of those indie
movie beta males who can trace their lineage back to Woody Allen, and it's
an inspired notion that all those paranoid quirks make you ideally suited
to survive the apocalypse, as long as you learn how to handle a gun.
But the most novel thing about him has nothing to do with his 32 rules,
it's the fact that he's got the only thing the movies fear more than Mad
Human Disease: virginity. Yes, this is a guy who, in the words
of Tallahassee, needs an intentional walk to get to first base, and the
movie gets a huge laugh out of just how much more severe that stock scene
where he and Wichita are about to kiss until someone walks in on them is
in his case. But if anything can make a boy into a man, it's a Zombie
Apocalypse, and Eisenberg plays that growth really well in the closing
scenes. In general, he adds layers of humanity to a role that's usually
not played with a lot of depth, and part of the reason he has room to is
that pairing him with a badass killing machine is inspired. Harrelson
is right up there with Toms Hanks and Cruise among the actors who've learned
the most on-the-job, and his Tallahassee is totally believable both in
his viciousness and as the goofball who tells the heartbreaking story of
the photo he carries in his wallet, then adds “I haven't cried this much
since Titanic!” Tallahassee BLAMES the zombies for everything
that's happened to him, and he takes Columbus' “double tap” rule to new
levels with his interest in killing the same zombies over and over again.
I'm
officially done being surprised by how much I enjoyed Emma Stone, who was
the best part of the TV series Drive, a delight as the Ghost of
Girlfriends Past in the movie of almost the same name this spring, and
takes her game to a whole new level here. Wichita calls on her to
deliver the full range of action, comedy and romantic tools and she delivers
on all fronts. The “Intentional Walk” scene is a minefield, as it
requires her to convince us that a jaded criminal would not only find a
guy like Columbus attractive, but make a move for him, and she pulls it
off in a way almost no one ever can. Throughout, she manages to show
us the Heart of Gold without seeming toothless as a crook or zombie hunter.
Sure, the Pacific Playland plan is pure fantasy, but she's doubly motivated
by a world bereft of hope and the little girl in her care. And this
is a role that makes perfect use of Breslin's bottomless reserves of perkiness
while giving her a chance to play a tiny bit of edge.
Zombieland
is a real treat, a hilarious and heartfelt action comedy that convincingly
makes a planetful of gruesome ghouls most important as an obstacle to the
connection of four lonely people. It's so irreverent you won't even
notice how much you've come to care about these characters until the chips
are down, and even the least sentimental viewers will get some inspired
gore to keep their cold hearts busy. If, like Tallahassee, liking
your zombies to die messy doesn't get in the way of you being a bit of
a softie, this is the movie for you. |
