Surprisingly good movie.

Rating: 8/10 (12 October 2009)

As much as I expected this movie to be pure junk, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it is actually a good movie. This movie presents an offbeat story that is part science-fiction, part action and all comedy. Woody Harrelson gives a strong and amusing performance as a quirky character who is both a hero and buffoon and clearly dominates the story. The movie has lots of action, good continuity, and, unlike most Hollywood products today, is not overly long. The director wastes no footage as he put together what has to be one of the best edited movies maybe in decades. Gone are all the extraneous and superfluous filler that ruins most movies. Here the story is taut, simple, watchable and entertaining. The zombies are reduced to mere animated objects who can be abused and eliminated without a second thought and here lies the rub. For the ghouls that lay in wait for unsuspecting humans were once human themselves and what happened to them was not their fault but the result of something much larger and more profound. Yet the movie skirts the tragic dimensions of the catastrophe that has befallen the world and instead reduces the disaster to the level of a goofy comedy ... and it works. As long as the movie is accepted for what is is, parody, then it is entertaining. But if you are expecting a hand wringing moralistic tale of epic proportions then you may be disappointed, even while you laugh.