Funny - if you've never seen a zombie film

Rating: 2/10 (13 January 2012)

I'd noticed the high ratings and reviews that ZOMBIELAND was getting, and sat down to watch it expecting something a bit out of the ordinary; what I got instead was a film packed with tired, sub-standard schtick involving the lamest kind of zombie gags put on screen. Hell, even RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART 2, complete with its moonwalking zombie, was funnier than this! The main problem, I'd say, lies in the presence of such irritating characters. Jesse Eisenberg is the nominal hero, but he overdoes the whiny-geeky thing so much that I almost switched off. Why make the main guy so darned irritating? Woody Harrelson, as a redneck zombie killer with a penchant for Twinkies, fares much better, but he isn't enough to save this film from being near unwatchable. The less said about Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin's supposedly 'with it' sisters, the better, leaving this a movie without a single likable character to root for.
The plot less story uses all of its decent gags (i.e. the zombie 'rules') in the first ten minutes and for the rest of the running time meanders from one vapid scene to the next. One extended celebrity cameo is cringeworthy, and clearly thrown in in a desperate attempt to pad out the still-short length. By the time we reach the climax, a lunkheaded set-piece in an abandoned amusement park, I was long beyond caring thanks to the poor writing and sheer senselessness of it all.