Wednesday, Oct. 07, 2009

'Zombieland' lacks some brains

Certain movies are like beef-tongue tacos: they're good while you're consuming them, but the more time you have to digest them, the more you want to vomit.

It's also true that, in both cases, it's possible to enjoy them if you're stumblingly intoxicated, but if you're that messed up then you'd enjoy things like having long talks about your feelings and falling down stairs, too, so what kind of baseline is that. Don't be tricked: just because it comes in a taco shell doesn't mean it's delicious. Zombieland might have zombies in it (though honestly, not all that many), but that doesn't un-lame its jokes or excuse its "copy of a copy of a copy" feel.

Months after a rampaging virus has turned nearly all of the U.S. population into flesh-hungry zombies, dorky college student Jesse Eisenberg sets out on foot to find whether his parents are still alive. He soon runs into Woody Harrelson, a zombie-killing stud who agrees to give him a ride.

But zombies aren't the only threat in their world; as in ours, a hot chick can mess you up just as bad as a brain-eater. Once Eisenberg and Harrelson run into Emma Stone and her little sister, their trip gets detoured with a quickness.

I walked out of Zombieland with the sensation of having been transported to an alternate universe where the only difference is that awesome things, rather than being awesome, are crummy and tedious instead. How else to explain my annoyance with a movie from a genre I love featuring a cast I like? A fatal case of Mean Old Man-itis? Not enough nudity? (None, to be specific.) The tragic realization I'll never again enjoy slow-motion violence as much as I did the first time I saw The Matrix?

All these things are true, but they're also true of plenty of movies I've liked. Difference is, Zombieland wants to be a big comic romp--and there are a few laughs here; the cast is too talented for it to be a total waste--but instead of pulling me on board for the big hilarious win, it made me think of a little boy playing with an old kitty, laughing and petting away without realizing Whiskers actually died hours ago.

Its fundamental crime is it's just not imaginative. Besides toting around more weapons than they presumably did in simpler, zombie-free times, the characters show no signs of how they've adapted to the apocalypse. There's no real sense of how the world's changed at all, really, other than the fact driving around all those crashed cars is a real bitch. It's hard to get involved when the setting's shallow as a loogie.

The characters are no deeper. Eisenberg's an anal-retentive video-gaming nerd with all kinds of rules about survival, right, yet in the couple months he's had to gear up, he somehow hasn't thought to arm himself with anything more than a double-barreled shotgun that needs to be reloaded after each blast.

Any idiot who's ever touched a Resident Evil game knows if you're going to continue existing outside a zombie's corroding intestinal tract, you need a scope-mounted hunting rifle, a riot gun or machine pistol for crowd control, a backup pistol, and a katana. This is just common sense, people.

I get that this is all beside the point; Zombieland isn't supposed to be realistic, it's supposed to be "fun." That's no excuse for laziness. It ain't like it's dishing out crazy-sweet zombie murders or fresh jokes on the genre, either. The whole thing is equally thoughtless, as if the writers and director were vaguely aware of what's cool (zombies, Harrelson, smashing things) and what isn't (clowns, Garfield) and figured that was enough to hang a movie around. Derivative, disposable, and oblivious, Zombieland is shiny on the surface and empty underneath.

Grade: C