"Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride" - Rule #4

Rating: 7/10 (10 April 2016)

Uh-oh. In a highly unprecedented move I've actually watched two zombie flicks in a row. This coming from someone who's only other foray into the genre was "Night of the Living Dead", and that was over a decade ago. Nor was this a planned occurrence, I simply managed to catch "Shaun of the Dead" and this one on different cable channels and it just worked out that way. I don't want to attach any undo meaning to it, it's not likely my next picture will be a zombie film.
I think I liked 'Shaun' just a bit better, it started out with some nuance and Simon Pegg's early cluelessness about the approaching zombie horde was done cleverly. The principals here, along with the viewer, find themselves in the midst of a zombie apocalypse right from the get go, and things proceed at a pretty rapid pace. The 'rules for zombies' was an entertaining plot element, and most of them made a lot of sense, although Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) probably got some of his priorities mixed up as the story proceeded. I thought #22 - 'When in doubt, know your way out' was more advantageous than #7 - 'Travel light'. But each to his own I guess.
One advantage I find with pictures like this is that I don't have to think too hard about writing something scholarly in the way of a review. When you're dealing with mindless entertainment all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride. That's what it looked like Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) was doing, so if it was good enough for him, it's good enough for me. And now that I've learned my 'two zombie flicks in a row' lesson, I'll be back in another ten years.