Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

This movie is just a whole lot of zombie-killing fun

By John J. Joex

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

(THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS)

We can thank George Romero and perhaps Richard Matheson for giving us the Zombie sub-genre that has invaded films, comics, and books over the past forty plus years because their seminal works (the movie Night of the Living Dead and the novel I am Legend respectively) helped kick off this grisly brand of storytelling. And whether you are a fan of their works or any of the zombie offshoots (I’m only a mild fan of the genre), you should find something to enjoy in the recently released Zombieland. This movie, which stars the always funny Woody Harrelson, plants its tongue firmly in its cheek as it unfolds 90 minutes of post-apocalyptic, cathartic zombie-slaying fun (and it doesn’t go too far over the top with the violence, for a zombie film that is).

The movie skips the exposition and jumps right into the action as we meet the slacker-geek college student we will come to know as Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) as he flees from several zombies while in a voice-over he matter-of-factly provides us with a rundown of his rules for surviving the zombie apocalypse. He then meets up with Tallahassee (Harrelson) who reluctantly agrees to take him on as a traveling companion as they head east in search of a zombie-free zone. Tallahassee is hesitant to get too close to anybody (because at any point they could start trying to devour him), thus he insists that neither use their real name, but instead go by the names of their hometowns. These two later meet up with a pair of girls (Wichita and Little Rock played by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) who at first steal their car and guns, then later team up with them as they all search for someplace with a few less flesh-eaters running about.

And that pretty much gives you most of the plot as the movie follows their travels and their encounters with the walking dead (and one celebrity to go unamed). We get a little bit of information on how the zombie-plague started and a few glimpses at what motivates the main characters, but the rest is running from zombies and blowing them away. What makes the movie work is the excellent script by Paul Wernick (who created the Reality Show parodies Joe Schmo and Invasion America) and Rhett Reese as well as the spot on performances by the actors. The script successfully maneuvers away from the copy and paste dialogue you would expect from this type of movie and it delivers plenty of witty (and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny) lines along with some unexpected turns. And each of the actors fits perfectly with their characters and manages to compensate for the script’s sparse character development with their animated performances. And the four leads also have something that can make or break a movie, chemistry.

Really, the only thing this movie seems to lack is more fleshing out of the characters of its four leads. You find yourself asking questions like why did Tallahassee decide to keep Columbus around after he seemed so stand-offish at first. And why did both Tallahassee and Columbus end up trusting Wichita and Little Rock after they scammed them twice. But these are only minor quibbles and it’s really not too hard to fill in the blanks in these situations if you consider just how traumatic it would be to try and survive in such a holocaust.

Ultimately, though, you get attached to all four of these characters and find yourself longing for more of their adventures. And the best news is that more are almost certainly on the way. This was originally sold to CBS as a television series and the writers had planned out 23 episodes worth of material. CBS pulled the plug on the project (no surprise based on that network’s dislike of the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre) leading to Wernick and Reese pitching the concept as a movie. And based on the movie’s strong performance at the Box Office (already approaching $50 million after two weeks vs. a $24 million budget), a sequel is sure to follow. And that’s a good thing because as long as this crew (actors and writers) stay intact, we can expect several more movies of the same caliber.