ZOMBIELAND review: limber up
ZOMBIELAND review: limber up
Dec 16
Zombieland is one of those curious beasts that simultaneously flips the bird and cleaves religiously to Hollywood stereotypes, script and character requirements, and audience expectations. One minute the film is busy pulling the rug out from under your feet, the next it’s clumsily explaining already obvious symbolism to you like you’re an idiot; you’re flipped unexpectedly from snarky jabs at the desensitisation of youth to violence, to gratuitous gore and visceral, visual violence. While the overall product is immensely entertaining, the execution is a little bit muddled.
We are introduced to the stock-standard zombie scenario: America lies in ruins; four survivors form an unlikely bond of trust and friendship while fighting off the ravenous hordes; hilarity ensues. But right off the bat, we know this film is going to stand head-and-shoulders above most zombie flicks, and we know this by the sheer awesomeness of the opening credits sequence: rather than to spoil the pleasure of this sequence, suffice it to say it is more original and entertaining than any other credits sequence that comes to mind, and comes with more brilliant ideas than a dozen lesser zombie films combined.
The fresh ideas don’t stop there, either. We get a paranoid and realistically geeky survivor who only managed to outlive his fellow humans by sticking to a few dozen very specific, often-referenced rules; we get a gun-toting, Twinkie-hunting redneck played with a surprisingly human touch; and a pair of sisters who will give feminists the world over immense joy simply by being in control of their own lives instead of depending on men to save them all the time. Each of the survivors has a flashback scene explaining how they survived, and for once in a zombie movie, luck isn’t really involved, and neither is good looks or physical superiority. Just clever folks with handy skills, that’s all.
The colour scheme of the film presented something of a problem for me. Shot in digital, flashback scenes look gorgeous and bright, but scenes set after the initial, nationwide zombie attack are deliberately differentiated with the use of dull, drab tones–reds are sucked out to be introduced solely in zombie attack scenes (Steven Spielberg called, yelled something about Jaws being thirty goddamn years ago, and to come up with your own ideas, you assholes) and contrast is given a slight bump down from the usual filmic aesthetic. I know it was a justified artistic choice to make the post-apocalyptic scenes look like shit, but no matter how hard you justify it, I still don’t like looking at shit. Thankfully the Humvee our heroes drive around in for most of the second act is a reassuring shade of yellow, so we get a reprieve from the dull greys and browns every now and then.
Then there’s the confused message about violence. Red is saved for violent scenes, and the violence is of that special kind reserved for R-rated films: realistic. That is to say, brutal, horrific, visceral, and disturbing. But the filmmakers hoodwink the censors by throwing the vast majority of the violence at zombies, who are supposedly already dead, so violence is okay in that case, right? And our four main heroes suffer absolutely no violence whatsoever throughout the course of the film. There was a hopeful moment early on where I was convinced Abigail Breslin was about to get her head blown off point blank by a shotgun, but this promise of no-compromise filmmaking is broken in favour of a different kind of unpredictable screenwriting, which is okay, I guess, but backing down from a revolutionary moment you’ve set up in favour of a lesser climax is a little bit anticlimactic, not to mention annoying.
The violence really starts to jar when you think about it in the classic zombie context, hinted at a few times in the script: the world population were pretty much zombies already, what with their 9 – 5 jobs and their television programs and their Facebook status updates and whatnot, and the viral outbreak swelling their brains and dulling their senses was just nature’s way of making it official. So when hapless zombies get their heads caved in with mallets, baseball bats, and, yes, a banjo, the visceral thrill and macabre curiosity of violence satisfies but disturbs in its wanton bloodthirstiness. Does escaping the humdrum existence of office life really necessitate shooting ex-colleagues in the face? Twice?
There are some amusing 21st century twists on the formula as well. The main characters don’t share their real names for fear of getting attached to each other, so they all have monikers based on their geographical goal: Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita and Little Rock. Kind of reminds you of how hiding behind a screen name on the internet gives you a wonderful sense of empowerment. Thankfully the film only caves in once and reveals one character’s name, instead of the usually Hollywood-mandated feel-good lovey-dovey ending we’d get out of a film of lesser vision where everyone shares names and hugs and tears and all that.
Structurally the film is solid: unpredictable and constantly engaging, whipping through at a cracking pace and rarely slowing down without a good, character-driven reason. The characters themselves are amusing and human enough to care for, even if Jesse Eisenerg comes off as a more naturalistic Michael Cera (still annoying as all hell) and Emma Stone squints and pouts like she’s got a lemon lodged in her skull. The ending is big and forms a pleasant bookend when paired with the bombastic opening credits, and the big celebrity cameo in the middle of the film is hilarious.
I haven’t laughed this hard at horrible violence in a long, long time; the fact that you can laugh and cringe at the same time in this movie is a testament to first-time director Ruben Fleischer’s skills, and the classic formula of zombie films (which, like vampire stories, I’ve never really been that interested in). The zombies are always there, in the background, but the film chooses to focus on our symbolic family instead, and rewards diligent viewership with thrills and character moments alike. Despite a few visual and thematic flaws, Zombieland is still one of the best films of the year, and it’s impossible not to get swept up in its kinetic, funny, and satisfying energy. Just don’t forget to limber up.
78 / 100
