Above average horror comedy

Rating: 7/10 (25 March 2010)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
In a post apocalyptic world in the not too distant future, Earth has been taken over by zombies and formerly nerdy kid Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has had to buff up to fight off the maurauding masses. He crosses paths with Tallahasse (Woody Harrelson) a naturally tough, no nonsense redneck with his own demons to fight (on the inside.) But they soon find themselves in a battle of wits with two sisters, the older, beautiful Wichita (Emma Stone) and her feisty younger sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) before they figure it'll work better to work together...
The zombie movie franchise is alive and booming at the moment, both played straight with the new batch George A. Romero keeps dropping out and in terms of serving as spoof fodder, since the formula is so familiar. So much so that Zombieland keeps serving up self referential quips, with the rules that Columbus has established for himself constantly flipping up on screen in order of how he thought them up, which do have a bearing with how characters tend to survive in these sorts of films. Although it isn't a brilliant film, it somehow worked for me much more than the over rated Shaun of the Dead.
Cast wise, Harrelson could carry the role of the tough, grizzly redneck in his sleep, constantly cracking wise and at one point revealing an unexpected, dramatic trauma from his past that's as out of nowhere (and sort of out of place) as a similar scene in the aforementioned SOTD. Otherwise, Stone is sexy and sassy as Wichita. Eisenberg and Breslin are decent in their roles, but are secondary to the two I could write home about in a film with such a short cast list.
Short and sweet at 81 minutes, this is a forgettable but worthwhile send up, better than SOTD or even the more recent British counterpart Doghouse. ***