Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 Stars

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

I finally saw Zombieland this weekend. It came out the day I first went to the hospital with MRSA (and for the time I spent waiting to get in I could have went to see it but one never knows about these things), and then I couldn’t stand for nearly three weeks, and then I was afraid to be in a crowd—for fear someone would bump into me somehow, right before their eardrums were shattered by the piercing scream I would have emitted—for a week or so. But now things are finally starting to come together a little for me health-wise, so I went with a couple of friends—one a newfound friend from “The Room” (where we all go to get our intravenous antibiotics every day)—to see this. A Saturday afternoon… about a month after release… sunny, warm day… there were only about five people in the theater, including the three of us. It was nice. And my leg didn’t hurt very much.

I said before this film came out that I wasn’t a Woody Harrelson fan. He was good in Cheers, Kingpin was all right, and The People vs. Larry Flynt (one I almost always forget he was in because he was so seamless in the lead role) was excellent; so that’s three good things measured against all the other crap I’ve seen him in. I don’t really shy away from things I see that he’s in—he’s not Jim Carrey—and I certainly don’t run the other way when I see his name—he’s not Adam Sandler—it’s just that having his name on a marquee isn’t enough in and of itself to get me to buy tickets. And then there were no other real “stars” in this one I cared about seeing. I only recognized one other person in the film, Bill Murray, and he wasn’t in it for long; his piece was a funny one, though, and I’m glad they got him for the picture. Not sure I’ve ever seen anyone else in the movie other than Abigail Breslin. I’d heard of Jesse Eisenberg but I can’t think of anything I’ve ever seen him in.

For those who haven’t seen it, Zombieland is basically a “coming-of-age” story with zombies. Eisenberg’s character, Columbus, is funny, with his “Rules” and oddball behavior. His fear of virtually everything would have been much harder to take in a more serious film, as it would have made it impossible to believe he had ever survived any encounter with the undead. And Harrelson’s character, Tallahassee—everyone in the film goes by symbolic names of things that they’re associated with rather than their actual name; even Eisenberg’s neighbor, who we only see in flashback, is known to the audience only as “406”, her apartment number—steals the show. When he pulled over to raid the Hostess truck I leaned over to a friend and said, “That’s me,” and his general meanness mixed with his wanting to trust and believe in others was very well written and acted, walking a fine line between the humorous and serious—a sane man in an insane situation who has lost the only thing that mattered to him and feels he has nothing left to lose. Another thing about this character is that he seems to be the only one who’s really been changed by the apocalyptic happenings. Granted, everyone who survives changes the things they do, but the girls, known to us as Wichita and Little Rock, go about it by conning men into helping them and stealing whatever they need at the moment—which, we’re shown, is pretty much what they did before the dead began to walk—and Columbus is still the frightened introvert. Only Tallahassee seems to have undergone any fundamental change in personality.

One thing further here. This is a funny film I intend to buy on DVD. It’s only real problem as I see it is that it came out now. Any “zomedy” coming out now will inevitably be compared to Shaun of the Dead and that’s a high bar to hurdle. This film is excellent, but Shaun was trancendant.