Great movie, without much of a story

Rating: 7/10 (27 November 2009)

Like most other people here on IMDb and elsewhere, I think Zombieland is a great movie. An enjoyable movie. But where was the story?
The reasons for the zombie plague are not well explored, they are well hinted at though. The time-line is not explained. The reason for the survivors to have survived is not explained. Nothing is explained... everything must be taken at face value in this movie. All of the plot elements are borrowed wholesale from the Zombie genre, so there is no real reason to explore them further.
What we are left with is an undeniably funny, and enjoyable piece of Zombie fluff. A film that takes place within the well established Zombie-apocalypse universe without challenging our expectations in any way. Except for THAT sequence in the middle, whereby the unexpected appearance of a comedy great lifts the movie from unremarkable to near classic status.
The characters play with the well established stereotypes, both conforming to them and then occasionally usurping them for comic effect. In the end, it's a light morality tail about the value of the nuclear family even under the most extreme of circumstances, and it manages to be vaguely heartwarming.
I can understand this movie getting good scores. I recommend anyone with a tolerance for Zombie comedy to watch it (though it's a dark comedy - no Sean of the Dead here) but the 8+ score surprises me somewhat. That places it up there with the movie greats, and it really doesn't belong there. I gave it a seven, it deserves to settle at 7.3.