Zombieland: Funnier than Frogs in a Blender!

 

I absolutely love it when I'm right. Zombieland is blisteringly fast, blastingly violent and belly laughingly funny. Woody Harrelson (Cheers), Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland), Emma Stone (Superbad) and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) are as unlikely a group as you will ever find and yet their chemistry is catalytic and the chaos resulting is hilarious.

Harrelson is Tallahasee, a good ol' boy from down south with one talent: killing zombies. Eisenberg is Columbus, a young man that's raised neurosis to a fine art. Stone is Wichita, a super hottie with flim flam in her blood and Breslin is Little Rock, the grifter sister with charm and grit as deadly as the rifle she carries. Together they manage to make Zombieland one of the funniest movies of the year.

The plot is understated and predictable, and rightly so, leaving all the work to an absolutely brilliant story. A story so simple that I can't believe it's so original. Zombieland is a primer on Zombie killing, acted out by the people who exterminate them: Columbus, Tallahasee, Wichita and Little Rock, but It's how director Ruben Fleischer put the film together that makes it great.

Columbus, the young neurotic, actually has a complete set of rules, like "double tap" (kill zombies twice), "beware of bathrooms" (it's a trap), and "buckle up" (you never know when you may need to smash into the nearest zombie).

Tallahasee, the colorful cowboy, has a penchant for killing zombies (and does it with style). The sisters, Wichita and Litttle Rock, find the zombies (and the boys) an inconvenience on their trip west. Together the
four manage to create one of the best funny-scary movies ever.

The film has excellent production values, the acting is surprisingly good, the action suberb and direction unbelievably good. Zombieland manages to escape the "graveyard" by being totally off the wall, incredibly well written and with those little touches that make movie magic: Tallahasee's one rule (added to the list of Columbus's) is "enjoy the little things," to wit his only quest is to find the last twinkie in the world.

Zombieland is all about small surprises and the movie is chock full of them. You have to see this movie for I'm not going to spoil it by telling you any more. One warning: the violence and gore for the first ten minutes is staggering.

Rating 4 out of 5 stars.