"Zombieland"
Directed by: Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, Emma Stone
Rated: R
There are some movies that really make me long for the days when drive-in theaters were still in fashion. Ruben Fleischer's "Zombieland" is the latest in the line.
It's big, dumb fun from beginning to end and reminded me of the "old days" of hanging out at the drive-in watching "Night of the Living Dead," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the last film I saw at an open-air theater, 1991's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day."
The "zombie" sub-genre of horror films is a huge and popular one. Ground zero for the style was in 1932 with "White Zombie" starring Bela Lugosi.
Since then there have been countless films and novels using the theme and the works have ranged from the serious ("Night of the Living Dead" and "28 Days Later") to the sublimely ridiculous ("Army of Darkness" and "Shaun of the Dead").
It's in the spirit of those films that director Ruben Fleischer and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have fashioned "Zombieland." The trio also has obviously studied Quentin Tarantino's work. They can make gory giddy.
"Zombieland" is set in the none-too-distant future - in one shot, we see a theater marquee advertising "2012," Roland Emmerich's film scheduled for release next month.
The setting is a familiar zombie milieu: a post-pandemic world where the majority of formerly human beings are now stricken by the disease that makes them lumber and long to devour human flesh.
The main characters - still human - are named after their places of birth. We first meet Columbus, played by Jesse Eisenberg, who also serves as the voice-over narrator. He's on a quest to get home to see if any members of his family are still alive.
He meets and becomes a (reluctant) colleague of a rollicking cowboy whose two loves in life are Twinkies and killing zombies. Played by Woody Harrelson, Tallahassee is swaggering and quite funny. He and Columbus are as odd a couple as Felix and Oscar.
And things get even odder.
On the road, they meet what they assume to be an innocent young girl named Little Rock (Abigail Breslin from "Little Miss Sunshine"). She soon reveals that she's not so innocent. Her sister, Wichita (Emma Stone), steps out of the background and the two girls prove to be a shotgun-toting, zombie-killing duo with a survival sense that is immense.
The quartet, now more or less lead by the girls, head for a Southern California amusement park that the girls believe is a safe haven for any of the humans that might be left alive.
And when they get there, zombie heck breaks loose in a way the audience has been waiting for. There's a funny cameo along the way with a well-known actor playing himself as a zombie as well as a zombie who was a clown in his former life. "Zombieland" succeeds at what it attempts. It's funny, gory and pays homage to the predecessors of the genre.
If only Springfield still had a drive-in theater ...
Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield freelance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.
