Sunday, March 28, 2010

ZOMBIELAND RULES!




By
FRITZ "DOC "
FREAKENSTEIN


Professor Photon popped over to the lab last Saturday and much to my freakin’ amazement… he brought ZOMBIELAND on blu-ray with him. The prof is no lover of the zombie or horror genre in general, but before he could change his mind I zapped it into the blu-ray play’a and we watched that bad boy! The reason this avowed zombie flick freak hadn’t watched Zombieland yet was because, although the trailers looked wicked pissa, I was afraid it might be more like Shaun of the Dead, which I thought was about as funny as Morons from Outer Space – which is to say not funny at all.

I shouldn’t have been such a wus because right from the start, ZOMBIELAND was just one kickass gut-laugh after another! The film’s point of view character is a lonely nebbish, who survives the initial viral outbreak because he spends all his time alone playing video games while chugging Mountain Dew (one of my faves). He narrowly escapes his hot neighbor’s zombie attack, before fleeing his dorm in an attempt to return to Columbus Ohio to see if his parents have survived. “Columbus” learns to survive the flesh-eating zombies by creating “the rules”, which we are given examples of throughout the movie. My favorite: Number 2 -Double Tap, which has many variations including running over the zombie twice with your car. Early in the film, Columbus runs into “Tallahassee” after he loses his car in an accident and reluctantly the zombie killing expert offers him a ride part of the way to Columbus. Tallahassee’s obsession for Twinkies soon becomes the pair’s undoing as they are held up at gun point (by their own guns) and their car is stolen by two sisters of questionable morals. After catching up to the young women, the foursome form a truce, at least as far as Los Angeles, where “Wichita” is taking her younger sister “Little Rock” to Pacific Playland, an amusement park that they had attended in their more innocent youth. On their way there, the foursome take a detour to Hollywood, and crash at a famous actor’s home, who they assume is undead, but is in actual fact only acting as the undead. They finally arrive at the amusement park, but of course it is overrun by zombies as well and after many zombie slayings later… the new-found family of four depart together for adventures anew.

The plot description of ZOMBIELAND doesn’t do this film any justice. Jesse Endenberg’s portrayal of Columbus as the un-heroic (rule 17: Don’t be a hero), yet resourcefully sarcastic nerd is hilarious. He plays perfectly against Woody Harrelson’s fearless, high-strung nut-job Tallahassee, who repeatedly asks “Is that zombie kill of the week”? Emma Stone as the resourceful, outwardly tough, older-sister Wichita is remarkably likeable, despite outwardly being a distrustful hardass bitch! Abigail Breslin is also well nuanced as the older-than-her-years Little Rock. These four characters, and the believable ways in which they react to a world gone mad, give ZOMBIELAND a center that many zombie comedies (and comedies in general) just don’t have. ZOMBIELAND makes fun of not only the zombie genre, but pop-culture in general. Rule number 32 sums up ZOMBIELAND perfectly: Enjoy the little things. ZOMBIELAND is a film comprised of many danm fine little things and I hope that Zombieland 2 is not too far in the future. This is one of my top five wicked favorite films of 2009!








1 comment:

  1. As my hyper and freaky friend Fritz mentioned, I was passing by in this space and time and decided to bring him a hopefully enjoyable treat in the form of the Movie Zombieland. Well to tell the truth, I was trying to arrive before the theatrical release of Zombieland but I seemed to have missed the time part a little. As Fritz also stated, I’m not a huge horror fan. I’m sure he saw me wrinkle my nose at some of the more “horrific” elements, but I was usually too busy laughing at what had preceded them. This isn’t one of my top five films of 2009 but it was wicked fun!

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