I wish I could give the this movie 100 thumbs up in front of the post title! “Zombieland” turned out to be the best 81 minutes of my life this year so far. Seriously.
“Zombieland” tells the story of 4 of the, possibly, last humans left on earth after the zombie apocalypse has finally happened. Woody Harrelson’s character explains early on that knowing the names of those that are still alive is a bad idea because it will cause you to get attached, so instead of proper names they call each other by where they are from; Tallahassee (Harrelson), Columbus (Eisenberg), Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin). At the time the apocalypse happens Columbus is a college student in Austin, Texas and he decides to try and get back to Ohio to see if his parents are still alive. As he is heading east he hooks up with Tallahassee, a crazy zombie killing machine, also headed east and willing to take Columbus as far as Texarkana in his Escalade since Columbus has been walking. Tallahassee’s main side mission is to find a Twinkie, and this leads them to eventually meeting Wichita and Little Rock, two sisters trying to get to Pacific Playland in California, an amusement park that is rumored to be zombie free. After a series of cons on the guys, they all end up together heading west to the amusement park and on the way nothing short of hilarity ensues.
It’s so hard to really explain how truly awesome this movie was. I know that’s sort of a cop out in a lot of ways, but it’s true. I can honestly say this is one of the first times I’ve been to a movie where honestly EVERYONE in an almost sold out theater laughed at the same things and really enjoyed it together. Harrelson and Eisenberg are a fantastic, almost Abbot and Costello type pair, playing off each other perfectly. The acting from all four is genuinely great and the zombies, of which there are many, are both funny and somewhat scary. The special effects and makeup are great. This was the first movie I’ve seen Eisenberg in (sadly I missed “Adventureland” but my husband saw it and said he was really great in that and he loved him in this as well). He’s got a lot of promise I think as a comedic actor but he kind of reminds of me Michael Cera; he does that whole “sad geek” thing real well it seems. And truth be told, and anyone that knows me pretty much knows this, but I’ve had a big thing for Woody Harrelson since I was a kid watching “Cheers” and some of my favorite movies are movies with him (“White Men Can’t Jump”, “A Scanner Darkly”, “Natural Born Killers”…and he was the only redeeming thing about “Surfer, Dude” which was a shame because that could have been a great movie).
If you like zombie movies, you’ll like this. If you like dark comedy, you’ll like this. If you liked “Shaun of the Dead” you’re going to love this! And if you can, catch this one in the theater! I would definitely say this is one you want to see with a crowd. “Zombieland” gives a lot of hope that the zombie comedy concept can work on a lot of levels and it isn’t just a one-shot fluke. Here’s to hoping that the zombie genre keeps churning out funny, exciting films like this one!
