Zombieland

Cracked recently wrote a list of reasons why you secretly want a zombie apocalypse to happen... Zombieland sums all this up over a glorious hour and a half.

You should basically watch the trailer.

The film is that, but longer - in much the same way Iron Man was.

Need more? Okay...

So Zombieland is basically a combination of three factors.

Woody Harelson provides the Left 4 Dead side of the zombie fantasy - killing zombies in the most awesome ways possible.

Jesse Eisenberg provides the cracked/inner geek side of it - he has a list of rules in his head that range from the obvious (double tap, maintain cardio, don't be a hero) to the truely geeky, yet very sensible (check the back seat, beware of bathrooms).

Then there is Emma Stone. Emma Stone provides an emotional core to the film... she basically creates the circumstances for the characters to have a real relationship. She prevents it from just becoming an adolescent fantasy- mainly because she's not really that sexy, she's just- a nice girl.

So what does that leave us with? A geeky, emotionally mature, action packed zombie thriller. What's not to like?

Well, and I don't often say this, there's not much wrong with it. I suppose if I was really nit picking, there would be individual shots I would like to shorten/lengthen/remove but honestly, if I was doing this film, I'd do it in exactly the same way.

Fuck Sean of the Dead, this is now the best zombie film ever made.

The main reason Zombieland is better than its British cousin is - Whilst Sean of the Dead is probably funnier than Zombieland - Zombieland is more fun. It's more awesome. It's definitely more thrilling. This is partly because of the soundtrack - which really gets the adrenaline going - partly because of the aforementioned parallels with Left 4 Dead but mostly because the film takes it as its mission statement to kill zombies in fun ways.

Zombieland knows its audience better than even Sean of the Dead did. It knows what people want from this sort of film and holy shit does it deliver...


EDIT:

For the last half hour, I've been reading reviews of Zombieland (am very pleased to see that the reviewers agree with me for once - was worried they'd pull a Shoot Em Up on me) and have been buzzing with how great that damn film was.

You know what it's like when you get out of a film and want to just go in and see it again? I got this with the first Lord of the Rings film and The Dark Knight? Well I've got that with Zombieland. Makes it a very special film in my book.