Review: Zombieland

“Superbad meets Shaun of the Dead” boasts the poster and although Zombieland doesn’t quite live up to this flattering comparison, it’s still a bloody entertaining romp.  Not falling into the crude laddish sub-genre of the first comparison and not at all comparable (apart from the zombies) to the incredibly British humour of Sean of the Dead, Zombieland doesn’t really need flattering comparisons, it stands on it’s own as an excellent and surprisingly stylish film.

Speaking of style, it is not often in a review that I will mention the opening credits, but these ones in Zombieland set the tone so perfectly and implement one of the film’s main aesthetic pleasantries, so they are difficult to overlook.  The tone, is slow motion zombie slaughter to a soundtrack of Metalica’s For Whom The Bell Tolls and the aesthetic technique is 3D animated text.  Animated text may not sound particularly exciting but it is cleverly planted in 3D space, meaning that the text is knocked over and scattered as if it where a physical object.  The effect is pictured to the right but it has to be seen in motion to be fully appreciated.  The film is narrated by its protagonist Columbus (Eisenberg) and his rules for surviving zombieland are a key narrative device and use the 3D text effect frequently.  The film also jumps infrequently to Family Guy style interludes, zombie kill of the month for example.  While these interludes aren’t overused, maybe 5 times in total, the stylish 3D animation used to transition to them is engaging and encapsulates the film’s quirky Looney Toon esq take on graphic violence.  Zombieland is full of neat touches such as these and although it’s a comedy, a good one, I was surprised at how well it stands up from a purely cinematic standpoint.

As unlikely survivor Columbus (Eisenberg) journeys through the zombie infested remains of the USA, he meets Twinkie enthusiast and all-round badass Tallahassee (Harrelson), cynical love interest Wichita (Stone) and her younger sister Little Rock.  While the main screen presence is comedy force of nature Woody Harrelson, the other characters all have a great screen chemistry and the film’s main achievement is it’s band of entirely likeable survivors.  Each character is well developed and while it sometimes feels like they are fulfilling archetypal roles, they are written and performed well enough to overcome this minor criticism.  Zombieland then, is a tight 88 minutes of well written and slickly produced comedy, it’s not life-changing but it’s a whole lot better than I expected it would be.

Oh and before I go, if you haven’t heard about the incredible mother of all cameos the film contains, I’m not going to ruin it and I recommend you don’t google it.  Just go and pick-up the film and enjoy it for yourself, you won’t regret it.

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