Zombie-busters! (sponsored by Twinkies).

Rating: 3/10 (21 July 2010)

With a plot poorly xeroxed from any number of doomsday road movies, this Kleenex-thin 'Horror-Comedy' is exactly the sort of thing you get when a coven of zom-bot movie-execs 'Knowingly' get down with the kids by trying to assemble and programme a 'Shaun of the Dead' imposter and impose it upon an undeserving public.
A vaguely explained zombie plague brings about the end of the world as we know it, leading a nerdy virgin and a 'lovable' redneck (played by Jesse Eisenberg & Woody Harrelson) to join forces with two joyriding sisters (played by no one in particular) and embark on a laugh-free road trip to Nowheresville.
Along the way, we're subjected to logic-free plot developments, flogged-to-death pop-up survival points, insomnia-inducing romantic interludes and some sporadic, incidental zombie-action to remind you that you're watching 'Zombieland' and not a dumbed-down 'National Lampoons Vacation' remake.
Bill Murray drops by at the half-time whistle to say "Hello, I'm Bill Murray! - you might know me from such comedy classics as 'Ghostbusters' - here's a clip from that movie!" before swiftly doing an exit to (no doubt) try and save what's left of his reputation and integrity. On this evidence Bill, probably not a lot.
I'd like to pay Kudos to the author of the review on this site who rightly pointed out that this painfully unfunny cameo could possibly be the first time an actor has been used on screen as a piece of product placement. Just when you thought the Hollywood studios had sunk as low as they could possibly go re this practice, they find new depths to plummet to by giving you a backhander with a stunt as shameless as this one. It makes Harrelson's tediously elongated "I must have my 'H*stess' Twinkie!" 'gag' look quaint and agreeable by comparison.
'Zombieland' has around 20 minutes of (just about) passable material in it's stretched-to-breaking-point running time. The rest is all filler that implodes the moment it comes under any kind of scrutiny and will have you scratching your noggin as to how something as poorly thought out as this one is gets green-lighted into existence.
If you wanna see this kind of thing done properly, then try and get your hands on a copy of 1984's 'Night of the Comet' (a small gem) and leave this piece of under baked gunge on the shelf marked 'DVNL' (Digital Video Naval Lint).