Monday, October 19, 2009

I've Seen ZOMBIELAND


This film was supposed to be dead funny.

Zombieland is a film about mad cow disease mutating into something that turns almost all humans in North America into undead creatures (sort of a cross between Joan Rivers' face and the personality of an angry Anna Nicole Smith: "Durrr..."). Such a virus strain sounds more contagious than a rabid squirrel infected with herpes. It stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, and Abigail Breslin.

Personally, I did not find Eisenberg's portrayal of a neurotic Nancy boy terribly entertaining, but that's okay because
Woody Harrelson's comedic lines and timing carried the entire movie. The movie's pace was decent and its depiction of various zombie deaths were convincingly realistic. Especially when it came to undead head splattering trauma; it was like paintballs exploding onto brick walls. Another nice touch was the slow motion shots in the opening credits that set the tone that earth was experiencing a bad dream it was unable to wake up from.

Patrick Swayze was supposed to have a cameo as a zombie, but had to drop out due schedule conflicts with his pancreatic cancer treatments. Other actors that were offered cameos, but declined were Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill, Joe "You Think I'm Funny?" Pesci, John-Claude "Direct to Video" Van Damme, Kevin "Bernie Made Off With All My" Bacon
, and Mathew "Shirtless" McConaughey. If I was director of this movie, I'd try to recruit Demi Moore and reunite her with Harrelson. I'd cast her as a zombie that tempts Tallahassee with a box of Hostess Twinkies in exchange for bumping uglies with a necrophiliac nympho. I think it would be hard to receive a more indecent proposal than that.

I wouldn't object to a Zombieland sequel, as long the only recurring character they bring back are the zombies and Woody Harrelson's Tallahassee. Although, I believe I saw most of the funny parts of the film in the various movie trailers, it's still worth watching Zombieland at the theater on Cheap Tuesday and again on DVD, but only if there are lots of deleted scenes to view.

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