By Chase KahnI was more than pleasantly surprised to find out that not only is Ruben Fleischer's Zombieland a raucously funny, heavy-metal, guitar-riffing, zombie-kill mix tape coked-up on Red Bull, but it's a smart, genuine and occasionally wholesome (seriously) kind of stick-together-and-prevail post-apocalyptic action comedy.
With Jesse Eisenberg's romantic longings and nerd-guy vibes of antihero geekiness and that mini afro, I was reminded on more than one occasion of Greg Mottola's Adventureland. It's the same kind of guy-meets-girl, coming-of-age, smart-guy college stuff, but migrated into the middle of a ravenous horde of flesh-eaters meeting pick axes and hedge clippers.
When it comes right down to it, Zombieland is a splatter-fest action comedy extravaganza for most of the running time. It's flamboyantly bloodthirsty, twisted and macho-aggressive, but I never thought that it crossed the edge and turned into nihilism or tastelessness.
Zombieland is too cuddly and fun and good-natured for accusations of sadism and exploitation because it's really a hilarious, romantic and warm-spirited kind of thing. In short, it uses a zombie apocalypse (and conveniently written characters) to exhibit valuable life lessons of family bonding, love, adolescence, parenting, etc. -- so who says zombie are a bad thing?
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Glad you enjoyed this, I'll probably check it out tomorrow, the trailer makes the film look hilarious and Woody Harrelson has years of experience playing a red neck type character. How does this stack up to say Shawn of the Dead? I mildly enjoyed that film but it really began to drag near the end.
ReplyDeleteI'm right there with you on "Shaun of the Dead". I like it, but, like "Hot Fuzz", I think it's slightly overrated.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, I was bordering on giving "Zombieland" an (A-), I really, really liked it a lot. Loved the cast, loved the comedy -- I don't see many people not having a good time at this. And like I said in my review, it's too good-natured and warm-spirited to come off as nihilistic or cheap or tasteless...