In the interest of getting “hard” copies of my work under one roof, I plan to spend the next few weeks posting the entire archive of my film journalism here on ScullyVision. With due respect to the many publications I’ve written for, the internet remains quite temporary, and I’d hate to see any of my work disappear for digital reasons. As such, this gargantuan project must begin! I don’t want to do it. I hate doing it. But it needs to be done. Please note that my opinions, like everyone’s, have changed a LOT since I started, so many of these reviews will only represent a snapshot in time. Objectivity has absolutely no place in film criticism, at least not how I do it.
Originally posted on Cinema76.
It’s been ten years since the release of Zombieland. Ten full years! It’s hard to believe so much time has passed. It’s even harder to believe that someone saw fit to make a sequel long after the zombie boom of the early 2000s passed. If I remember correctly, it was around the time of Zombieland’s release that we began to have the conversation about how tiresome zombie media had become. The market was flooded with flesh eaters, and we were all growing a bit weary of it. At the same time, the next wave of cultural saturation was beginning right under our noses. With Iron Man, the age of superheroes was about to kick off in a big way, defining the next decade of populist cinema. Presently, the comic book wave is on a decline, much in the same way zombie cinema was a decade ago. Oddly, enough, the powers that be saw fit to dip back into the zombie pool one more time to make a sequel that no one asked for (but that mostly everyone will enjoy).
In revisiting the original film in anticipation of Zombieland: Double Tap, I was surprised by how little of its charm came from the concept of a zombie uprising. Above all genre concerns, Zombieland was a comedy about character clash, but with an undead apocalypse as the reason for a crew of disparate personalities to be stuck with one another. Zombieland: Double Tap succeeds for this very same reason. Yeah, there are zombies to be dealt with, but it’s the interactions between the protagonists that make the film sing, and which give it proper conflict.
As is standard with sequels, Double Tap makes the requisite effort to go bigger. As a result, the film is a bit shaggier around the edges. Things are generally heightened overall, but otherwise it’s just more of the same. Taking place in real time, precisely ten years after the events of the original film, Tallahassee, Columbus, Wichita, and Little Rock (Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone & Abigail Breslin) have made their way to the White House. They’ve carved out a nice existence for themselves, breaking things, enjoying discarded Americana, and placing a blindfold over a painting of Abe Lincoln so it can’t watch Columbus and Wichita having sex.
Little Rock is feeling a bit of adolescent wanderlust, however, and Wichita is more than a little spooked by the concept of settling down into a relationship with Columbus, so once again, they break off from the group, steal Tallahassee’s car, and head out on their own. Unfortunately for them, the zombies have been evolving, and now the most violent of the undead are also the hardest to kill. Furthermore, these beasties have the ability to think and reason. When Little Rock goes one step further and runs away from her older sister into the arms of a blowhard hippie boy, it falls upon the rest of their makeshift family to mount a search and rescue mission.
Many characters are met along the way, with Zoey Deutch’s airheaded Madison stealing every moment she’s in. A mid-film sequence where our heroes cross paths with a comically identical crew of refugees is a highlight, and also an exhibit of director Ruben Fleischer’s clever action staging. A prolonged, single-location zombie fistfight is shot with more clarity and a better eye for scene geography than the bulk of today’s action movies (Hobbs & Shaw, I’m looking at you). Given that the action is really a secondary concern in a film like Double Tap, it’s a wonderful bonus to see it handled with care.
The name of the game with films like this is fun, and on that front Zombieland: Double Tap delivers. It has just the right level of heart to quell any notion that it doesn’t validate its own existence. Sequels are, by their very definition, unnecessary, but who cares? Nut up or shut up.
Stay through until the end of the credits for a special surprise, and to hear a rockin’ Elvis cover by Woody Harrelson himself.
Zombieland: Double Tap opens in Philly theaters today.
