GEEK LOVE

Flesh Eating Undead Serves as Backdrop to Sappy Love Story in Zombieland
by Morgan P Salvo


The first five minutes of Zombieland depict some of the best chewing, spewing, and gore guzzling zombies amidst cool graphics and side splitting comedy. Unfortunately what follows does not live up to the beginning. It’s as if the grand finale starts the show.

This is not a Zombie movie to rival Shaun of the Dead. Mostly it’s a poorly directed love story with interspersed moments of humor. Zombies serve only as feeding frenzy comedic background surrounding a feeble and redundant story of love and angst. Too much “touchy-feely” interferes with guts splattering and zombie killing.
The humor in Zombieland dissipates as quickly as the rationale for the world wide zombie epidemic: mad cow turned into mad people then the major virus turned everyone into zombies. The plot revolves around four misfits who have survived the world-turned zombie, traveling to a place where there might be maybe more survivors.
The comedic timing in this flick is almost surreal. Whole scenes are never as funny as the lines in them. Constructing a tongue in flesh-eating cheek love story with dweeb overkill, a severe lack of zombies and not enough substance writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick insert too much “lets-put-this-in-because-we-think-its-funny” stuff. Sometimes they hit the bull’s-eye, such as referring to zombie road kill as a “Manwich”, but other times they miss the target completely..
Director Ruben Fleischer doesn’t fare any better. Jumping into film from directing Jimmy Kimmel Live you can actually see how his transition to big screen escapes him at times. The storytelling is filled with quick tell-all flashbacks synonymous with all things late-night TV-ish. Trailing off into tangents and sauntering around aimlessly, this flick explores love and loss from a wimps’ perspective seemingly only for the filmmakers’ own selfish entertainment.
Woody Harrelson plays Tallahassee (characters go by aliases named after their city) who is a kickass zombie killer. This gun-toting renegade cowboy is also in search for the perfect Twinkie. Harrelson again proves he’s willing to go out on a limb for goofy effect. Not only is he a badass, he’s a big crybaby. Luckily his take on macho stupidity elevates the humor level above most of the nonsense we’re forced to endure. Emma Stone (Wichita) elaborates on her Superbad character by coming off super bad and then letting her heart of stone melt. I like Jesse Eisenberg (Columbus) especially in Rodger Dodger where his smart-ass intellect had the ability to listen and learn. Here Eisenberg’s nebbish behavior is forced into our face for the entire movie containing relentless voice over narration alongside his character’s constant jabbering. He seems like the bastard son of Woody Allen in a part turned down by Michael Cera. A saving grace is that Eisenberg and Harrelson make the most of their undeniable chemistry and have some hilarious dialogue. As far as the use of Abigail Breslin (Little Rock), her only function seems to be to prove she’s grown up a tad since Little Miss Sunshine.
The biggest atrocity is the cameo by Bill Murray playing himself. This interlude might’ve proven highly comedic but a fantastic idea was driven into the dirt by both writing and direction.
The slow pace of the road trip give this flick plenty of time to stew in its own juices. By the time we get to the zombie showdown showcasing play-land carnival rides I’d been done in by all the inconsistencies making it really hard to care or even root for the characters. I wanted more zombies. I came out with a Hallmark card memory. This movie is eaten alive by cuteness, not by flesh eating humanoids. Just as the undead need to devour human flesh, Zombieland needed more meat to chew on.

Zombieland
Starring Woody Harrelson Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
 2 stars