Zombieland: More of Woody kicking butt would have saved it

Rating: 5/10 (2 October 2009)

I never go to a Zombie movie unless it looks like it contains some quality. What hooked me on Zombieland was the opportunity to see Woody Harrelson doing some butt kicking in a light hearted way. I liked him best when he tried to be funny. I felt sorry for him in earlier disastrous movies. I avoided him until I saw the trailer for Zombieland. Seeing him dressed up to kill Zombies really got my hopes up. So I went to see Zombieland.
Woody was the best part of the movie. Unfortunately, the movie didn't know how to use his character. Just from the trailers alone, I felt this was going to be great fun watching dead walking people get even deader. Woody shooting the walking dead...Woody hacking the walking dead...Woody smashing the walking dead - what more could one want? Seeing him do this sort of thing in more serious roles with non-dead people just didn't do it for me. I saw the trailer and felt, the guy's humor is back and he is going to have fun. I am glad he had the role of Tallahassee but apparently the geniuses behind this movie thought Eisenbergs character would win us over. WRONG!!! Eisenberg has a definite cute factor but he is always wimpy. He should never be a main character. How anyone saw it best to let his character override Harrelson's is beyond me. I will admit that the beginning of the movie had me feeling optimistic. Starting out as though some early teenage kid had just written this Zombie movie in his bedroom in a few hours, the narration had me smiling from ear to ear and laughing out loud. It had a great feeling in the beginning. But then the long (I mean l-o-o-o-n-g) musical introduction kicked in and began to drag everything down. That is until Woody made his first appearance. I was once again hopeful. Sadly, as his character was moved from front and center to off center stage, the movie became less and less funny.
Bill Murray's short appearance helped break monotony. But, to heck with that, let's get back to the wimp and see if he can get some sympathy from Emma Stone. YAWN. Eisenberg translates to "boring; must avoid future possible funny films with him".
I will be fair, though. A younger generation may appreciate this movie for its abused zombies if they couldn't care less that this felt very much like an extended, bad Saturday Night Live skit. You have to go in knowing this is a comedy involving stupidity and flesh eating zombies. For that alone, it gets a 7 but denying Woody a better developed and more completely used character earns the movie a 5.