The dead just ain't that funny. That was my overriding feeling by the end of Zombieland. A rather kitsch attempt at what amounted to little more than rendering a video game on-screen left me neither giggling nor really very impressed at all.
There are some lovely ideas behind Zombieland. After the zombie apocalypse, survivors battle to find sustenance against increasingly dangerous odds. Into this wilderness appears Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a neurotic boy who goes by the name of his hometown and stays alive by adhereing to a strict series of rules. The rules themselves are fairly amusing, if predictable, and suggest an early awareness of the parody that Zombieland is offering. Even the way in which the rules are presented starts out as seemingly inventive, but quickly becomes tedious, a repeated joke that doesn't gain momentum throughout the film.
Then Columbus meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and the film lurches sadly towards more plain fare. Sisters (Breslin and Stone) show up; wanton violence abounds, wanton, unimaginative violence; we start to witness a rather insipid love story unfold, and family values start getting pasted all over the place. Then there's the cameo by Bill Murray. Less said about that the better; it was entirely disappointing, and clearly out of place with the tone and style of the film. But perhaps that can be forgiven, because it seems the film struggles to decide what tone it is going for. A slick, over-stylised opening descends into a Hollywood producer's wet dream with romance and redemption as the eventual message. It's sickly sweet.
A great shame. Some clever tricks and a neat concept fail to lift the film above mediocrity. It has the stamp of Hollywood over-production, and it suffers for it.
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2010
Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin
dir. Ruben Fleischer
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