Zombieland: Double Tap: Review by @Kush_Hayes
The first Zombieland from 2009 was a runaway sleeper hit. Financially and critically a hit with audiences, it was a perfect mixture of comedy and horror that audiences ate up at a time before the Zombie Genre would become completely saturated by a TV Series called The Walking Dead only 13 months later. And with the numbers Z-Land put up, it was only natural that we would get a new sequel. The problem with that was careers would launch after this film. While Woody Harrelson was no fresh face, he would get locked up in not only the Hunger Games series, but back to back “Now You See Me” films. Abigail Breslin would become in demand with indy films and a TV Series. Emma Stone became an American Sweetheart being chosen to lead multiple films and musicals and then Jesse Eisenberg would go on to do The Social Network AND win an Academy Award, making his schedule much busier.
Maybe a sequel with a cast this hot would be harder than it seem.
From there the creators tried to re-adapt their re-adaptation from a TV Show, to a movie back to a TV Show for Amazon Prime in 2013. For whatever the reason, audiences werent biting. No pun intended.
Finally all the stars lined up, schedules cleared up, and script was dusted off and simplified to make shooting easier and we finally got our-self a proper extension to the 2009 hit.
Its been ten years. The Zombies are still a thing and evolving better than our cast has. What that means is other than just zombies, now we have Slower/Dumber Zombies, they identify as “Homers”. There are zombies who move in silence and stealth, theyre identified as Ninjas… and while being the most interesting, are never seen again… again, no pun intended. Then they have the “T-800” zombies, who, while named after the robot model from The Terminator, feel like just zombies from other zombie films in that they dont go down til they get shot in the head… which you can argue is every zombie… but thats our external conflict while our heroes fart around the apocalypse.
I would say of our four heroes, that Breslins character Little Rock has had the most growth, but that could also be because she is no longer a child. Harrelsons character as Tallahassee has become her father figure, but hes still a boob. And Columbus and Wichita have become a full on (bickering) couple and it gets old quick. And while we arent supposed to look at plot holes within this saga, I refuse to believe that they would remain intact for ten years regardless if they are the last two people within their own age group. … And thanks to Zoey Deutchs character Madison, who has been living in a freezer of a Pink Berry in the mall for the last ten years, we find out theyre not the only two people in their own age group.
Fortunately for Columbus, Wichita and Little Rock ditch the gang, again, making this hookup possible. And because themes in this film are replicated, eventually Little Rock meets a guy her age and ditches her sister, forcing her to come back to the guys asking for help as much as she insists she doesnt need it. As our road-trip goes on we meet three new characters, Rosario Dawson, who feels incredibly underused in this. And Luke Willson with Thomas Middleditch who play sudo-doppelgangers to Columbus and Tallahassee, and ultimately you wish they had more to do.
Our Core Four eventually reunite, then realize they are still surrounded by zombies and we get an action montage of setup and ultimately execution of the external conflict. As I watched this, I felt like this zombie fight could have been avoidable and that maybe our heroes actually drew in the problem. Thats the only plot-hole Im going to stay fixed on over everything else.
Overall, this is more of the same that we had from ten years ago and thats not bad at all. This movie delivers on the comedy. Its the same gang and they still work well together. There is gore, nothing worse than what we had ten years ago, but I would say worse than what folks are upset about with Warner Bros new Joker movie. I wouldnt mind a third Zombieland with this cast, but I wont waste any wishes on it.
Photos Courtesy of Sony Pictures
Three out of Six Blueberries
Rated R for bloody violence, language throughout, some drug and sexual content
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