#1-Zombieland (2009)

Zombieland

It's been about two months now since Pantient Zero took a bite out of an infectious hamburger from his local gas-and-gulp. Symtoms include:
Swelling Of The Brain
Sweltering Fever
And an Undying Desire for Human Flesh.
Imagine Mad Cow, transformed to Mad Human, Transformed to Mad Zombie. Welcome to Zombieland.

Now lets be honest, anybody who walked into a movie called "Zombieland" hoping for a tour de force on modern culture, in a two-and-a-half-hour masterpiece driven by charater development, was probably an idiot. The plot is mostly as described above. We get one little sentence of narration descibing how the zombies came to be, and then we are thrown into a world of massacisstic cannibals hoping for their next fix. Other than that, our main plot follows four main characters. Columbus, Witchita, Tallahassee, and Little Rock, all named after their home towns. (Never use real names, it gets things too personal), and with Columbus' book of rules, they head off to make their way to Pacific Playland, hearing that is the only place left un-touched by zombies. But they are going to have to go through a hell've lot of them to make that far.

The acting in this movie is good. And yes, there are some moments that acutally require acting, and some touching, (if not sometimes depressing moments) of life at home before the apocalypse. Woody Harrelson does an amazing job, as he always seems to do. And that is really good for him, beause before Zombieland he hadn't had a box-office hit since the mid 90's. Speaking of box-office failure, this movie also stars Jesse Eisenberg, whose last big project was adventure land, which failed to make a connection, again good thing Zombieland came around to help this little Indie gem. Emma Stone is a relative new-comer to film, and does a decent job with a fairly large supporting role. Abigail Breslin appears to be taking a fouree into more adult films, which it really where she started. Little Miss Sunshine anyone? And yes, she is from Signs. All the acting here is well done and had some very good improv by some pretty much unknown comedians.

"It had to be a clown. No, no, you don't understand. It HAD to be a clown."

While it's name might seem daunting, this film is definatly a success at being a comedy. All the lines hit perfectly, there is some in-your-face moments, and other more subtle humor displayed here. But, do not fret horror fans, Zombieland features plentys of scary, and tension filled moments in between spouts of laughter. It didn't cut out on the violence either, its body count is high, and lots of blood fuel this movie with adrenilne. However, despite how many positives I have with the film, there are a few negatives.

The first opening sequences of this movie are hilarious. The first, maybe fifteen minutes are the absoloute best. If the entire movie was like the first minutes, it would be one of my favorites definatly. Though the film continues to be funny in its entirety, the rest of the movie is a little bit slower, and the humor is more evenly spaced, when originally it was just being thrown at you over and over. And me saying that it has slow moments isn't good, considering the movie isn't even an hour-and-a-half, that includes credits.

And lastly, also in the beggining, the film had a very cool, hip, kinda slow-mo-y visiual style that it had going on. I really enjoyed it, the music was perfectly tuned to each of the scenes, and the action was well oriented. But again, for some reason the action seems to get pushed to the wayside during the middle, and then the style and action comes back for the final act. I just thought that it was strange for it to come and go like that.

Well, Zombieland has officially become the highest grossing zombie movie of all time, beating out the Dawn Of The Dead remake, and it was the first zombie spoof to make a large profit in the U.S.. I have to say, it definatly deserves it, and the minor gripes that I had with it, are just that, minor. The acting was great, the humor was spot on, and when it was there, the action was fun. Overall Zombieland was a great experience.

I Give Zombieland A:
4/5