Zombieland (Reuben Fleischer, 2009): USA

Reviewed by Colin Marshall. Viewed at the Fiesta Five.

“Zombieland” is, in Ruben Fleischer’s film of the same name, what the remaining living citizens of the United States of America have rechristened their country. One can’t help but assume that it was also written on the scrap of paper that, in the tradition of Brandon Tartikoff’s scrawled “MTV cops” note that launched Miami Vice, got the project rolling. While the first two acts of this dispiritingly three-acted story turn up present and accounted for, they pretend to no nobler a role than as the spindly superstructure straining to support a single elaborate set piece: “Hey, have we seen zombies swarm around an amusement park yet?” someone must surely have asked. “You know, like Disneyland? That’d be a real zombie… land.”

And indeed, nobody looking for the shambling, cannibalistic dead swarming around ferris wheels, concession stands and swinging pirate ships will bemoan a bill of false goods. As a zombie delivery system, the picture is a well-oiled machine that whirrs to its maximum operating speed almost immediately. Eschewing a build, it commences its salvo of blood-vomiting, sinew-scarfing animated corpses without hesitation, as the protagonist, a virginal collegiate weenie called Columbus — the untrusting denizens of this newly barren, rough-and-tumble continent go by the names of their destinations, except when they don’t — rattles off his personal list of rules for Zombieland survival.

These guidelines are simple and numerous, though we’re only privy to a few. “Cardio.” (Because it’s surprisingly difficult to outrun a zombie.) “Double tap.” (Because zombies often fail to expire after absorbing only one shotgun blast.) “Always check the back seat.” (Because zombies hide there.) Columbus’ most useful rule from the audience’s standpoint, “Don’t be a hero,” signals, of course, his fatedness to be the hero. Slowly making his way to his semi-estranged Ohioan parents by whatever means of conveyance he happens upon — the streets are strewn, Rapture-style, with unmanned vehicles — he cautiously joins forces with Tallahassee, a middle-aged roughneck whose only remaining desire compels him to consume as many Twinkies as possible before their last expiration date passes.

Columbus and Tallahasse soon wind up in a pas de quatre with the sisters Wichita and Little Rock. After getting swindled by the girls a time or two, the boys elect joining over beating, and together they close in on Pacific Playland, the amusement part that Wichita has promised the 12-year-old Little Rock will deliver a zombie-free return to childhood innocence. Bearing west, the gang of four continue to dispatch zombie after zombie by whatever means seems funniest — I recall garden shears — and take a breather to cathartically trash a chintzy Indian reservation gift shop.

That the male leads band together with what happen to be their sassier, wilier, more sketchily-drawn female mirror images suggests that some or all of the imaginations at work may be unequal to the film’s task. Much else in Zombieland‘s first half, an oddly dutiful march of dry highway landscapes, broad one-liners and endless exploding squib packs, provides supporting evidence. A shaft of hope breaks through when the foursome find their way into Bill Murray’s mansion and encounter the man himself, made up in protective zombie drag. Tallahassee, who loves himself a viewing of Caddyshack nearly as much as he loves himself a twinkie, goes into incoherent raptures. Little Rock, presumably younger than The Man Who Knew Too Little, claims ignorance, which prompts Columbus to screen Ghostbusters for her in Murray’s lavish private theater. “You’re about to find out who you’re gonna call!” he excitedly exclaims, directly over the theme song’s reveal.

What in a bolder film would be the opening swerve of a sharp left turn into unexpected, radically unformulaic territory turns out here to be mere tonal interlude. Putting this anomaly behind it, Zombieland promptly resumes its trajectory toward the inevitable. Well-scuffed but alive in the aftermath of the obligatory Pacific Playland showdown of which you’ll be spared the details, Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita and Little Rock pile into their Hummer and blast down the road toward the end credits, in an equally risk-free wrap.

As refreshing as it is not to have to endure the formation of serious intragroup romantic pairings or watch these plucky survivors rise as the brave green shoots of Earth’s repopulation, these absences are cold comfort in a film so deliberately disposable. Every frame of Zombieland‘s fleetingly brief runtime — and especially its every reference to both the particular pop culture of the moment and the particular pop culture about which the moment is lazily nostalgic — carries the discomfiting feeling that nobody involved in its production cared enough to channel their $23 million into anything that might still resonate with the far-flung audiences of, oh, 2015. Anaconda jokes do not, it seems, a timeless classic make.

What’s ultimately satiated is the filmmakers’ apparently overwhelming fear that the public, appalled by a lack of zombies, might well storm the box office demanding refunds. We thus get it all, and then some: zombies running, zombies jumping, zombies staggering, zombies chasing, zombies chowing down on flesh, zombies spewing ichor, zombies smacked upside the head, zombies losing their heads, zombies run over, zombies smacked by doors, zombies shot. Especially zombies shot. The effect is of a light-gun arcade game in attract mode, humanized half by genuine wit and half by leaden wisecrack. But hey, you want amusement park zombies? You got ’em.

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Published:
10.25.09 / 1pm
Category:
Films