DVD Review: Zombieland

Zombieland. 88 mins. Rated MA15+. Directed by Ruben Fleischer. Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.

Since 1932’s White Zombie, the ‘living dead’, in their many ghoulish incarnations, have been staples of the horror genre – largely thanks to George A. Romero’s … of the Dead films: Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985) and Land of the Dead (2005) starring Australia’s Simon Baker (The Mentalist).

Considered the ‘Zombie Master’, Romero’s films have deservedly won themselves a cult following and are celebrated worldwide, not only for the way in which they push every single one of the celebrated horror genre’s buttons, but for how they can be enjoyed as satirical commentary on the worst of human excesses: consumerism, greed and blind-sided military aggression respectively.

Comedy, too, has been increasingly integrated into flesh-munching, zombie scenarios – no more successfully than Shaun of The Dead (2004), in which Simon Peggs’s charming, nerdy shop assistant ‘Shaun’ becomes a hero by taking on the local zombie community in order to win back his ex-girlfriend.

Zombieland is the story of Columbus (Jess Eisenberg, pictured) – a phobic young man who, with the help of a set of rules for withstanding the zombie apocalypse, has managed to survive. When he sets off to try and find other survivors, he meets Tallahassee (Oscar-nominated Woody Harrelson) who is in search of Twinkies – a particular brand of American cream-filled cake. When their vehicle and weapons stash is high-jacked by the resourceful Wichita (Emma Stone) and her young sister Little Rock (Oscar-nominated Abigail Breslin) who are on their way to a theme park, the men must chose between going their own way or following the girls.

While it certainly has its moments (the opening budget-draining few minutes are extremely promising), Zombieland rapidly disintegrates into a cheap, tedious, half-baked road movie with self-conscious pretensions to comedy, social commentary and relevance. Bill Murray (Ghostbusters) has a moderately (and momentarily) appealing cameo as himself, but Harrelson (The Messenger, The People vs Larry Flynt), Eisenberg (The Squid and The Whale), Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) and Stone, just flounder haplessly all over the place in one unengaging, undirected and unfulfilling scene after another – all tacked together with the strength of a daisy chain by editor Alan Baumgarten (Meet the Fockers).

When, minutes from the end of the muddled and predictable theme park sequence, you realise that the same particularly insipid and uninspiring line of dialogue (“nut up or shut up” … whatever that’s supposed to mean) has been repeated more times than you care to remember, you know that the scriptwriters have really hit a brick wall. Hard.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.