Superb

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2011)

The world has become overrun by zombies, go figure, and two loners team up for a while to help each other reach their destinations alive. Jesse Eisenberg plays Columbus, a young lad who was already nervous enough of anything in life before a zombie problem appeared and who now survives thanks to his lengthy list of rules he tries to adhere to at all times. Woody Harrelson plays Tallahassee, an angry man who has finally found his calling in life as he maims, ridicules and kills anything undead that crosses his path. As the two men come across two females (played by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) you just know that it's only a matter of time before things start getting strained and those essential rules start being broken.
It's hard to really put a finger on the way this movie gets so much right. For a start, it definitely seems to make more of it's budget than most horror comedies manage. There's an impressive mix of great FX work and polished violence (some comedic, some surprisingly brutal). The script is smart and consistently amusing, helped by performances that are uniformly pitch-perfect. Harrelson stands out as one of the best modern genre heroes but Eisenberg is totally endearing and the girls develop as the movie progresses. And let's not forget a cameo to rival even that comedic performance given by a mystery star in Tropic Thunder. Overall, I just have to say hats off to director Ruben Fleischer for blending the ingredients together so perfectly and providing fans with a complete blast that, while up there with the other greats of this subgenre, does it's job in a different enough way to feel unique and fresh. Superb.