All films can be improved with an 11-year-old girl with a shotgun

Rating: 9/10 (27 November 2010)

When I first saw the trailer for Zombieland I feared that it was simply to be a poor American copy of the classic British film Shaun of the Dead. Luckily I was wrong and Zombieland is a funny, action comedy in its own right and nearly as good as Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg's work.
Two months after a virus turns most of the world's population into flesh eating zombies, Zombieland follows the survivor "Columbus" (Jesse Eisenberg), a social outcast who follows his list of 31 rules to survive. On the way back to home to Columbus, Ohio "Columbus" meets "Tallahassee" (Woody Harrelson), a handy man at killing zombies and on a mission to find the world's last Twinkie in world. After getting rob by two sisters, "Wichita" (Emma Stone) and "Little Rock" (Abigail Breslin) the four end up joining forces and head west to California, believing that there is an uninfected area.
What makes Zombieland work is a very strong and witty script by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, excellent direction from Ruben Fleischer and top comic performances from a great cast. The writers and Fleischer were able to mix both great witty dialogue, funny lines and reactions with excellent physical humour, sight gags and violence slapstick.
Fleischer is a very stylist director, with particular the opening credits set during the collapse of society and the way the rules come up on screen. He was able to make a quick paced film, with a lot of violence action. The zombies are more like the creatures in 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead, fast and disgusting looking: they would have fitted well in a serious horror film. Fleischer knew how to handle his set-piece and much of the action was of top quality. The style of mixing bloody violence with a light hearted tone and some serious moments, and the way it was shot reminded me of Kick-Ass (which was actually released six months after Zombieland). The writers were able to inject some character development, allowing the characters to grow from lonely and develop trust and they do allow for serious moments and make the film more then just a mindless comedy gore feast. The scene in the store reminded me a little bit of the scene in 28 Days Later.
There is great chemistry between the cast. Eisenberg and Harrelson are both normal comic talents and were an fine chalk and cheese combo. Emma Stone is an actress with potential and she dominate the feisty chick role: she looked the part (and was great looking) and she worked particularly well with a big name actor in cameo role. I look forward to seeing her in the next Spider-man film, but I think she would have been perfect as Mary-Jane Watson rather then Gwen Stacy. I am sure that a bit of dialogue was ad-lipped, which is always smart thing to do in a comedy. Breslin has shown she has had a good child actress ever since her debut in Signs and that had comic talent in Little Miss Sunshine. She also worked well with Harrelson, with them arguing and have a dislike to each other and talking about Willy Nelson and Hannah Montana. Plus she had a shotgun and any film can improve if it has an 11-year-old girl with shotgun.
Dave Sardy also gave the film a fitting, intense rock score, adding to fun nature of the film.