With a title like Zombieland one would expect to see ghoulish flesh-eating fiends terrorizing innocent victims as a major part of the story (if the filmmakers even decided to put a story in there, I mean, it is a horror film!) But could said film not only contain the standard scary zombie stuff but also fully realized characters and a solid story?
Columbus is heading back to Ohio in the hopes of discovering that his parents are still alive after a plague wiped out most of humankind and turned the rest into zombies with a taste for human flesh. Along the way he runs into other survivors (Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock) whom he decides to tag along with. Together they must not only fight to survive the zombies, but each other as well.
One of the best things about Zombieland were the performances of the lead actors, specifically Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg. Harrelson was a hoot as Tallahassee, a man who reveled in finding his true calling in life (i.e. killing zombies) while blindly obsessing over finding some Twinkies. Eisenberg's paranoid, yet relatable Columbus provided the moral center for the story. His often hilarious rules for surviving Zombieland kept him alive but also kept him from getting what he wanted more than anything in life, a real family and a girl. It's only after he met the other survivors, including a beautiful young woman named Wichita, that he realized the life he was living (essentially as a shut in) made him a zombie in his own right and sometimes rules need to broken in order to get what you want. For a character to undergo that type of development and have said development drive the story is rare to find in most movies nowadays, let alone a horror film. The story was another plus for the film because there was actually one present (and a good one at that). Between the comedic quips and tense action the audience learns that Columbus was not the only one looking for something more in the post-apocalyptic world. Tallahassee's hunt for the elusive Twinkie, Wichita's desire to get her younger sister Little Rock to Pacific Playland amusement park, each was seeking something that seemed normal in an insane world. And by the end of the film, each came to realize that the most normal thing in their lives was the pseudo-family they had formed. I can't remember (if ever) the last time a Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers film dealt with something so simple, yet so real in its story.
When a film is able to breath fresh air into a genre full of staleness and unoriginality, it is a welcome change. Zombieland was that breath of fresh air for it not only provided the type of action and chills the audience was expecting, but also gave them witty dialogue, dynamic characters and a wholly satisfying story.
Grade: A
