Review: Zombieland

New Zombie comedy Zombieland has been busy getting itself some good reviews and word of mouth and it is indeed worthy of the good words it is getting:

Synopsis: In the horror comedy Zombieland focuses on two men who have found a way to survive a world overrun by zombies. Columbus is a big wuss — but when you’re afraid of being eaten by zombies, fear can keep you alive. Tallahassee is an AK-toting, zombie-slaying’ bad ass whose single determination is to get the last Twinkie on earth. As they join forces with Wichita and Little Rock, who have also found unique ways to survive the zombie mayhem, they will have to determine which is worse: relying on each other or succumbing to the zombies.

Review: Zombieland, I first though was some American remake of Shaun of the Dead. I couldn’t have been more wrong (that isn’t putting down either film, I love them both!), it is totally its own take on the comedy zombie genre (if that is a genre). The film is greatly entertaining. Funny and gory, good characters that have chemistry and a great cameo.

The film starts out with a narrative rundown of what has occurred, given by Eisenberg. This includes his rules for surviving Zombieland, which include:

• Cardio - Fatties are goners
• Double Tap - And probably the best, don’t be stingy with your ammo. Make sure the Zombie is dead.

The list goes up to about number 32/33 but we don’t hear them all. We then lead into a brilliant set of opening credits.

Columbus (Eisenberg) is trying to get home to see if his parents are still alive (in Columbus by the way), Tallahassee (Harrelson) is trying to get to his name’s sake location and they meet up on the road. Tallahassee has a thing for Twinkies and seems to flaunt all of Columbuses survival rules and Columbus slightly neurotic state annoys Tallahassee. Therefore queue some bonding and getting to know each other better. Luckily Eisenberg and Harrelson have great chemistry together and the two characters play of each other nicely.

On the way they get sharked by Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin) who one up them a couple of times and take their car and guns. Eventually however, they have to trust each other as the only 4 remaining survivors and start getting a long better. This in the end leads to them going to Hollywood and crashing in the house of one Bill Murray. Now, this cameo is brilliant. bill plays it up great and there is a hilarious Ghostbusters scene. Harrelson is also superb in this section. The ending of the cameo though you can see coming a mile off, but it doesn’t really take away from it. After this Wichita and Little Rock take off again for the amusement park they’ve been trying to get to all along, a place supposedly free of Zombies …

Well, if you go to an amusement park and turn it all on, you’re going to attract the Zombie hordes aren’t all and guess what happens! Here comes the action and gory part of the film. Plenty of gun action and zombie kills here, a brilliant part where Tallahassee is on a roller coaster dispatching the undead left, right and centre. The rough ‘romance’ arc also finishes itself off here too and the film feels nicely finished off at the end.

Overall then Zombieland is a great, fun and gore filled film, if not very scary. Rating = 4/5.