DVD Review- Zombieland

DVD Review- Zombieland

Zombieland is a fun, stupid movie with loads of blood and loads of laughs. I rented Zombieland recently and watched it twice. I watched it once with no audio commentary and once with audio commentary. In the commentary and other special features on the DVD you find out that the movie was originally meant to be a TV show. In the second time viewing the movie I could see why. There really is no point to the movie. The movie results as a bunch of random scenes thrown together that probably could have passed for several TV episodes. Is the movie fun enough to overlook the many flaws? I will say yes, yes it is.

The movie stars Jessie Eisenberg as Columbus (everyone is named after the city they are from) trying to make his way to Columbus, Ohio to find his family. He narrates the movie trying to let us in on what the world is like now when it’s run by flesh eating zombies. He explains what little back-story there is. Along the way he runs into Tallahassee played by Woody Harrelson. Most of the laughs and great moments of the movie involve these two characters. The two actors have great chemistry together and are great at riffing funny lines off each other. Eisenberg is great as a nerdy college kid that is scared at everything and has basically survived the zombie outbreak using his smarts. Harrelson is the opposite playing a tough guy who kills zombies for sport. Harrelson has never been funnier than in this role. They are the stereotypical odd couple and it works very well.

They then run into the other two main characters of the movie, a couple of sisters played by the beautifully funny Emma Stone (Wichita), and the Oscar nominated Abigail Breslin (Little Rock). We learn that these two have survived using there ability to con other people. Wichita and Little Rock hitch a ride to California where they hear that there is an amusement park where there are no zombies. Most of the movie is watching them traveling to different places and getting into funny situations. Yes I know it’s a zombie movie and all I’ve been talking about is how funny it is. It’s more like a comedy that just happens to have cannibalistic zombies running around. At times I even forget that there are zombies at all.

Zombies appear out of nowhere throughout the movie and are usually easily disposed of. They look very gross and always have black gunk coming out of their mouths. People do get eaten but most of that is during the first 15 minutes of the movie. When people do get attacked it is quite disgusting and bloody, very bloody. I’m talking the kind of bloody scenes where blood is splattered everywhere. I should also point out that there are a lot of people on zombie violence as well. Tallahassee likes to bash a lot of zombie’s brains in with a bat or banjo in which like before a lot of blood is splattered.

Overall I enjoyed this movie a lot. I would recommend it to anyone that can stomach the gory violence. The movie had great comedic performances by the four leading actors, and one special cameo. The DVD has some good special features including a making of Zombieland, scene design, make up, and an audio commentary featuring stars of the movie Eisenberg, Harrelson and the director, and writer of the movie. I wish it had a stronger plot driving the characters, and had more back-story, but it doesn’t detour from the fun you will probably have watching this.

Grade: B

Rated R: Extreme bloody violence through out including people getting eaten by zombies, zombies getting shot several times, and getting there heads crushed in. Make up of zombies is very grotesque and can be scary to younger viewers. Lots of use of several strong cuss words.