Zombieland is perhaps the funniest movie engineered in a long time. Woody Harrelson (if you are a regular reader you understand why) is not one of my favorites, but he used to be. Channeling his inner Woody Boyd from "Cheers" and bowling prophylactic kingpin from Kingpin, he has hit a home run out of the park (providing that park has a zombie population of 0).
In Zombieland, according to Jessie Eisenberg, one must abide by at least 32 rules. The most salient are maintaining one’s cardiovascular fitness, one must not hesitate to shoot or run over one of the infected at least twice, and one needs to wear their seatbelt at all times (damn you General Motors for promoting the Cadillac Escalade and throwing in the seatbelt reminder!). Actually, this may have been a masterstroke of advertising, even better than telling 350 million Americans that they should never drive a Toyota again because the Prius has no brakes! Eisenberg’s character is a neurotic, friendless recluse who survived ironically because of his flaws/deficiencies. While managing to survive based on a self-written rulebook, he encounters the most badass living member of Zombieland (planet Earth post-mastication) Woody Harrelson. Each survivor is given a new name signifying their home town. Harrelson is "Tallahassee", Eisenberg is "Columbus", Emma Stone is "Wichita", and Abigail Breslin is "Little Rock".
Tallahassee is off the charts hilarious in this film. Rather than playing a token role or a paranoid skeptic (2012), he is the lead. As a bellowing murderous maniac with a mean streak and years of pent up frustration, he destroys private property, car windshields, and shoots hundreds of fat frothing at the mouth zombies for sport. Without his sense of humour and routine glass shattering, he would lose all sanity living in a barren wasteland full of the undead. The pairing of the cautious Eisenberg (whose fears I sort of agree with) with the reckless Harrelson makes for comedy that otherwise would never have existed.
The funniest part of what is a comedy film set in a worldwide graveyard (just tell me how in the heck electricity works in Zombieland!) is played by none other than Bill Murray or BM for short. Traveling with the two con artists Wichita and Little Rock, Tallahassee and Columbus decide to take refuge at the mansion of the "greatest fucking actor of all time, Bill Murray." This may be true, depending on one’s criteria of course. It turns out that BM is one of the five people on the planet still alive. What is his secret? Naturally he dresses with makeup and a wig to look like a zombie. He plays golf and grocery shops amidst a sea of the enemy, whom he sort of resembles. After having the greatest time of his life Tallahassee takes Bill Murray in full costume to meet Columbus. Columbus and Little Rock were watching Ghostbusters part one on BM’s home movie theater when BM came in to scare them. Not understanding the gag, Columbus fired a hole through poor BM’s sternum. Whoops! Somebody get this man a hot dog! Sorry, I stole that line from Baseketball. The duality of Ghostbusters playing while Bill Murray is killed as a zombie by his former movie partner Woody Harrelson is too funny to imagine, you simply need to see it to believe it.
The storyline has more holes than a sponge. Still, we must ask, is Zombieland "sponge-worthy?" Absolutely, I laughed twenty times at the carnage and destruction. Fat zombies? Hilarious. Riding a rollercoaster while blowing heads off? Hysterical! The list goes on. If you need a good laugh and have a loose sense of humor this is one movie you cannot miss, or you might not survive if the world ever changes, REALLY changes!
