Thursday, October 15, 2009

Zombieland: "Where are the fucking Twinkies?"


The Zombie movie is indeed as tired a genre on the silver screen as WWII is in the land of video games. Even the godfather of the zombie movie, George Romero himself now produces woefully substandard movies of a genre he once pioneered and dominated. It took some British comedy writers to pave a clear path for what can really be now - due to over-saturation - the only future of the Zombie movie [save the Resident Evil franchise which is consistently innovative and more Sci-Fi then Zombie horror at the end of the day] and I speak of course of the Zombie-comedy. Edgar Wright’s 2004 movie Shaun of the Dead worked because it took an idea that everyone was more then familiar with and turned it on it’s ass in the best way possible way through a hysterical lampoon of the genre. Seeing the success and the status of Shaun stateside, writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick set about creating a proposed TV pilot that would not only address a Zombie outbreak in the US and put an American slant on the zombie-comedy using the somewhat more familiar Zombie-movie setting, but also due to it’s location: serious, easily available firepower. It eventually became a movie and attracted the likes of Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray so [hopefully] a new movie franchise was born in the from of Zombieland.


The opening credits present a gleefully gory yet hilarious series of slow-motion images of what must be the Zombie outbreak. Like many of it’s contemporaries, it doesn’t investigate what caused the Zompocalypse or delve too much into what happened, a throwaway narrative comment is sufficient and enough to specify a virus [stemming from mutated mad-cow disease] as opposed to evil risen undead etc., and as it’s the subject of Robert Smith?’s paper – a virus is far more chilling these days. The style of the movie is seen from the protagonist’s perspective, one Columbus played by Jesse Eisenberg. Columbas is a likeable yet neurotic nerd who enchews human contact and a social life for pizza and World of Warcraft. He has applied his organisational skills with great effect to create a series of several dozen rules which he uses to combat the Zombies, these include "Cardio", "Seatbelts" and "Double-tap" and all are supported as exceptionally good ideas throughout the course of the movie and they even appear as large text on the screen whenever a rule is followed as you would find in an instructional video adding to the hilarity.



Columbus is supported by Tallahassee [Woody Harrelson] who seems to have been born to kill Zombies and take quite a delight in coming up with new and innovative ways to sadistically yet humourously send them on to the afterlife. His quest in search of Twinkies crosses his path with Columbus and later Wichita [Emma Stone] and her sister Little Rock [Abigail Breslin], a pair of young con-artists who trust no-one, not even our beloved heroes. Their journey stems from Austin, Texas along the road to Hollywood to partake in a lavish respite [a rest which took slightly too long on screen] from Zombie hunting before the finale in Pacific Playland in California, where the movie explodes with insanity – just think of how many unique ways there are to eliminate Zombies in an amusement park!

If anyone is going into this expecting a horror movie in the run up to Haloween, then forget it, this is a comedy through and through, while Ruben Fleischer has not directed a tale to trump Wright's Shaun, he, his writers and cast have created a worthy and highly entertaining addition to the genre and without a doubt, the funniest movie I've seen all year.

Colonel Creedon Rating: *****

3 comments:

Civilian Overseer said...

they're way down here. fix the page Colonel

vaughan said...

Oh I thought I was the only one with that problem.....errr yeah fix the page Colonel.
By the way a week?!It took you a week to review what you yourself call the funniest movie of the year...I know your busy on your next Black ops mission Colonel but dammit man you reviewed Whiteout a mere day after seeing it and the iconic grin of Bruce Willis Surrogates 72 hours after...so why did it take you so long to write the review of what you yourself admitted was the funniest film of the year....don't you understand colonel people hang on your every word when it comes to your opinion of cinema......by the way the black ops thing I've said too much haven't I ....

Civilian Overseer said...

Nein, esteemed VGin, it was the Colonel, stabbing down the enter key again. I've tested it on seperate computers using several different browsers. The best rule of thumb is, always, always assume that's its the Colonel's fault.

As for the Colonel's next black ops mission I certainly hope he gets there before Bill Clinton this time.