Reviews by Danny Onforo

ZOMBIELAND  2009

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Script : Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese

Rated: M Strong horror violence

Running Time: 88 mins

Stars: Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Abigail Breslin

                      ZOMBIE comedies have been plentiful since the British made Shaun of the Dead a few years back, but none has been as funny as Zombieland, set in the United States of Zombie, where laughs lessen the bloody violence that erupts thruout the film. The odd couple casting of geeky Jesse Eisenberg, and the comedic Woody Harrelson are perfect for the film. Eisenberg is Columbus and he is the guide and narrator for this very funny splatter comedy and this nerdy guy offers a series of rules to best survive a world over run by flesh eating Zombies as he is travelling across America after a zombie plague, linked to mad cow disease, that has pretty much devastated the human population, turning everyone into flesh eating zombies. We're quickly briefed on the sensible guidelines Columbus follows to survive, this part gets gory fast but still funny. He just wants to live long enough to lose his virginity, although one attempt with the girl in Apartment 406 almost cost him his life. While On the road, Columbus encounters the ultimate redneck killing machine, Tallahassee (Harrelson) with a burning passion for Twinkies, and the unlikely partners team up, disposing of zombies with a variety of implements from toilet bowl lids to garden shears. The pair are initially duped by two sisters Wichita Emma Stone and Little Rock 13-year-old Abigail Breslin, but eventually the four make an unlikely alliance, standing firm against zombies they encounter on highways littered with waste. While Columbus just wants to get home to Ohio to check and see if his parents have survived the zombie plague, the sisters' goal is to reach a California theme park they'd visited in happier times. Before then, the quartet make a stop in Beverly Hills, providing a surprise movie star cameo appearance that adds to the fun of the film when they visit his home. The main performers and the surprise guest, are really great in this film, but it is Harrelson who just steals the show.

           Zombieland is shot and edited great and made by a debuting filmmaker Ruben Fleischer from a script by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, its overly violent yet really funny, but the violence is played up for laughs.

 8/10 Stars

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