Brains, Blood, Boomsticks, & Broods

Well we took last week off, well we didn’t but I can’t call the movie we watched schlock and get away with it. So I went rogue last night and headed to the theatre for Zombieland. I’ve been excited about this one for months, but judging from the IMDB response I can tell my review is going to buck the current trend. Don’t worry I’m not going to go out and bash it like Woody Harrelson does reporters, however to say I left a little underwhelmed would be right on mark.

It certainly had the budget to kick ass and it does it well at every opportunity. In fact they may have retitled the film An Encyclopaedia of Zombie Kills. For once a movie doesn’t use up all it’s good footage in the previews. It uses it’s special effects to splay zombies in every fashion and every way. That part is fun. What isn’t so fun is it starts to feel like a video game that you’re watching. Yup. What’s that thing movies used to have back in the day? Oh yeah, a plot.

It lives and dies by it’s characters… breathing life in: one badass, blade wielding, insane Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson)… sucking the life out: an ocd, Michael Cera wannabe Colombus (Jesse Eisenberg). It’s not the actor’s fault. He plays Michael Cera well. However, 2 months into the freakin’ zombie apocalypse (of which there are apparently four survivors) the following no longer exist: electricity, RomComs, and people who contemplate their virginity.

I could keep going but you get the idea. It could have been the empty theatre, my heightened expectations, or that I’m judging Hollywood by schlock standards, but it fell short. However it does have: electricity, pot, Bill Murray, large caches of automatic weapons, manipulative female characters, flaming zombies, and a visual nod to Dale Earnhardt (thank you Aaron). What it doesn’t have: a good reason why it’s not connected to a controller, sex, intestines, plot twists.

I had fun. Although I got in trouble for being a “talkie”. I do fear a rash of these movies in the future, and I’ll feel compelled to watch them because they have zombie in the title. Tonight is a fine example as we head off (officially) to see Zombies of Mass Destruction (more on that tomorrow). For now as I vacillate between the 2.5 and 3 I’ll ride the wave.

3/5 Twinkies

This entry was posted on 10/14/2009 at 16:34 and is filed under 3 Brains with tags American Horror, Apocalyptic, B-Grade, Blood, Campbell, Campy, Chainsaws, Cheesy, Comedy, Demons, Directors, Flies, Fucked up, Fulci, Fun, Gore, Graphic, Grave Digger, Guns, Guts, Headless Corpse, Horror, Japanese Horror, Knives, Machetes, Massacre, Monsters, Movie Reviews, Movies, Nightmares, Raimi, Romero, Schlock, Sex, Silly, Special Effects, Strippers, Tequila, Transgender, Troma, Undead, Vampires, Virgins, Zombies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.