Looking at the list of movies I saw in theaters this year, I won’t have guessed that Zombieland would be the best of the bunch (which includes disappointing summer blockbusters such as Star Trek, Watchmen, and Wolverine), but it proved surprisingly entertaining.
When you break the film down, there isn’t any particular part that truly stands out. The plot isn’t anything original: America has been overrun by zombies, and four strangers on their separate ways to different locations rumored to be zombie-free are thrown together by circumstances and end up breaking one of the rules of surviving the zombie apocalypse: Don’t bond with anyone. The characters are a predictably one-dimensional (though well-played) bunch: A tough-as-nails zombie-killing machine (Woody Harrelson) who delights in toying with the undead before sending them to a gruesome end; a skittish, introverted college student (Jesse Eisenberg) who has stayed alive thanks in part to his lack of a life; a con artist bad girl (Emma Wood); and a gun-toting, wise-beyond-her-years 12-year-old (Abigail Breslin). The cliché romance between Eisenberg and Wood’s characters could be seen from a mile away. There’s an out-of-nowhere Bill Murray homage (about the funniest thing I’ve seen Murray in in years), and then there are your usual handful of plot holes, such as how they seemingly have no trouble finding fuel for their gas-guzzling Hummer (maybe it’s a hybrid), or where does the power to run a whole amusement park come from if no one is left to run the utilities.
Zombieland, however, is greater than the sum of its parts, mostly because it has one thing going for it: Lots and lots of hilarious zombie killing. The zombie slaying in this movie is kind of like the crack-laced seasoning in Bojangles’ chicken — an ingredient so powerfully good that it can turn any dish into a delicious treat. Really, the plot was just a haphazardly assembled device to string together disparate scenes of zombie annihilation, with reminders of various rules for survival sprinkled in.
The movie really doesn’t pretend or try to be more than what it is, and that’s part of the reason it worked. There’s no grand statements about life or humanity, no veiled metaphors, no forced B stories, no need for you to think; just lots and lots of zombies being dispatched in an entertaining fashion. The movie only runs 87 minutes, and really, that was about as long as it needed to be (although I could’ve definitely gone for a few more “Zombie Killer of the Week” scenes).
My rating: 3.8752343 out of 5