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Zombieland

Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 11:02 am
by Remo D
Seriously? Two weeks in and NOBODY else here has said anything about this?

My wife and I celebrated our fourteenth wedding anniversary by thumbing our noses at the STEPFATHER remake (it didn't tank as horribly as I hoped it would, but it was nowhere near as successful as PROM NIGHT, so that's something, I guess). We had saved ZOMBIELAND as a special treat.

I doubt you need any details about the setup... we follow the adventures of an eventual team of survivalists in a world suddenly overrun by "mad human disease" (read: flesh-eating zombies--the running kind). Survival tips and tricks are efficiently pointed out as our protagonists (usually identified only by city of origin, hence "Columbus," "Tallahassee" (Woody Harrelson) and "Wichita,") eventually start to form the semblance of an actual family (Harrelson and Little Miss Sunshine herself, Abigail Breslin, are particularly terrific) in between hilarious, juicy bouts of violence, gore and the quest for the final Twinkie.

There's more than enough rollicking good fun here to make the film rather easy to recommend, but I hope you'll pardon me for letting my inner critic loose all the same? I've got to tell you--there was SO much hype about what was allegedly "the greatest celebrity cameo of all time," for example. And it IS fun, and I've always liked the guy. And yet it was at this point that the movie took a serious swerve for me... almost right off the tracks. It became a different sort of comedy altogether--to the point where our resourceful survivalists suddenly started behaving like utter buffoons... for no particular reason that I could divine. Well, unless you consider "plot resolution" reason enough. Now be fair to me here before you shoot me down with "only a movie, only for fun," okay? I had NO problem accepting this world and I LIKED all of the characters. They were great fun to spend time with and they DO make the movie worth watching. But tell me that I'm wrong to raise my eyebrows when they go out of their way to set up a spectacular climactic conflict by suddenly turning into absolute idiots. Yeah. Let's activate everything in an amusement park in the dead of night ON OUR OWN... and suddenly act surprised and unprepared when a horde of zombies ACTUALLY SHOWS UP???!!! Am I not allowed to file that under "What the HELL were you THINKING?"

ZOMBIELAND is a fun time at the movies--but that's about it. We do NOT have anything as insightful and clever as SHAUN OF THE DEAD here--what we have is a whoop-em-up in desperate search of an ending. Just don't get the impression that I said it was a 'bad film' or that it wasn't entertaining. I never said that. You'll still want to see it.

Fair?

Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 7:33 pm
by Chris Slack
I saw it on opening day but just didn't feel compelled to post about it :)

As a comedy I felt that it delivered spectacularly. It was well paced and consistently delivered good gags. Like you I did wonder what the hell the people were thinking when they turned on everything at the amusement park. Perhaps they had convinced themselves that the amusement park was truly the one place where they didn't have to worry about zombies. But whatever, I dug it a lot and it gets my thumbs up for just being a fun film!

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 10:25 am
by Clark Chaos
I loved it, funny, some great Zombie moments, some really great lookin' undead, various speeds even. LOL

Jumped a few times but I always do that.

I want to go again.

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 11:17 am
by Evil Red
I loved it. Especially the scene where Tallahassee is groping for an approriate way to say good bye to Wichita. I laughed my ass off at the movie line he stole for it. :D

The whole thing cracked me up.

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 1:10 pm
by MuC
fun fun fun...not much else to say...definatly gonna give it another go...

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 11:42 pm
by Jenzy
I saw it this weekend. . .loved it!

The pop up rules were funny as hell!:D