The Intern Review: Zombieland

Dear everyone who worked on this movie,
I would like to give you a high five.

Sincerely yours,
Elias Amini,
Intern-at-Large

Seriously if I could send letters like this to every single person who had something to do with this movie I would. From the catering dudes down to the production assistants mother. This movie was by far the most enjoyable thing I’ve seen all year. It’s almost beautiful. Take a well worn premise (the world overtaken by zombies? Oh Snap!) throw in some new twists (zombie kill of the week? A celebrity who survived?) and you’ve got a fresh look at a dead-beaten-horse-of-a-genre. We find ourselves wrapped in the narration of main character “Columbus” (Jesse Eisenberg), a sad-sack college kid who breaks down his rules to survive in zombie-filled America or “Zombieland”. He soon runs into “Tallahassee” (Woody Harrelson) and the two begin their journey to nowhere in particular. Soon they meet the swindling duo of Wichita (Superbad’s smoking Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin) the four form an unlikely family traveling through the anarchy that is, say it with me now, Zombieland. Now the thing that sets this movie apart from another Dawn of the Dead “zombies-are-everywhere!” remake is the comedy. But wait, wasn’t “Shaun of the Dead” the last word on the much loved genre of the zombidy? You’d think so. All that pip-pip, wot-wot cheerio humor sure is adorable. But when it comes to good old-fashioned ass kickin’ guns a-blazin American humor, it’s clear who the winner is. Much like “Shaun of the Dead” you do take a sick pleasure in the ways zombies are dispatched throughout the film. But this movie makes a full on gimmick of the luring and killing of zombies. And there’s more! There is actual depth to each of these quirky misfits. Columbus’s longing to belong, Tallahassee’s devastating loss, Wichita’s trust issues and Little Rock’s a kid for Christ’s sake. Flashbacks into each characters past gives you a glimpse of their lives pre-Zombieland and actually humanizes them much more than in past z-genre movies. So strap in and get ready to get freaked because in “Zombieland” the movies tagline holds true. Either Nut Up or Shut Up.

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