ZOMBIELAND: This land ain't my land.

ZOMBIELAND
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
Columbia Pictures
Review by Louis Fowler

ZOMBIELAND is a lot like the Twinkies that Woody Harrelson is so desperately searching for in the movie: you think that you want it, but as you chokingly try to swallow its dry 'n' sweet sponginess down, you realize that it is empty and hollow, in no way a proper, filling meal. It's barely a passable snack. You know you should have made another choice. You know you should have had something more substantial. At least a salad.

What you get instead is one extended, unfunny joke about zombie-killing, none of which are particularly clever, but I guess if you film it in slow-motion while throwing in a fat joke or two, rabid fanboys and the mainstream alike think that they are witnessing something new and groundbreaking. Turn around and take a look at the glazed-over eyes and drooling mouths of the moviegoers behind you! They get all excited and worked up and visibly aroused because ZOMBIELAND kicks off with a stylishly cool credits sequence set to the tune of Metallica's “For Whom the Bell Tolls” — and I'll admit that, yes, it is very cool — so much so that they'll forgive everything that comes afterwards. Just like WATCHMEN. Style wins out over substance once again!

The irritatingly emo and slightly vampiric Jesse Eisenberg (who desperately wants to be Michael Cera) is Columbus, a skittish loner-nerd on his way to, well, Columbus, Ohio. He has a set of gratingly quirky rules designed to keep him alive and annoying. Along the way he meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) who is supposedly this inventive, bad-ass zombie-killer, but, then again, as the script was obviously written by people who have never seen a zombie movie before, I'm sure to them they are. They fight and road trip and make like a clichéd Odd Couple, eventually coming across the horrifically shrewish twosome of the gargoylish Emma Stone and the cunty Abigail Breslin, a pair of sisters who screw over Jess and Wood to much pseudo-comedic effect.

Due to their close quarter circumstances, of course the foursome learn to live with and, yes, grow to love, one another. How do they do this? By bonding over the destruction of a roadside Native American souvenir shop. How awesome was it to see these four last WHITE remaining zombie survivors to laugh and gleefully smash and trash Native American artwork, drums, pottery...and to hear the other WHITES in the audience cheer them on. Between that and the running fat jokes, it seems to me that the real horror of ZOMBIELAND isn't the living dead, but the indoctrination of the audience into subliminal pro-eugenic rhetoric. I wonder if the crowd or the critics would have been as erect if the gang torched a Mosque or hung a gay zombie from a barbed-wire fence? Have fun at HorrorKlanKon 2009, zombie-fans!

The one saving grace of the movie is the extended cameo by Bill Murray, but even then it should probably be best viewed in an edited YouTube clip, where I'm sure it will hit eventually.

ZOMBIELAND is not a great zombie movie, or even a good zombie movie. It's thoroughly mediocre but most of you will never even notice it, what with all the lights and bright and shiny things being waved in your face like a placated baby with a set of house-keys. Don't believe me? Eat a box of Twinkies for dinner and tell me you're satisfied when your puking your guts out and wishing there was that nice salad within reach.