Zombieland

WOODY HARRELSON (holding the bat) and Jesse Eisenberg are attacked by a zombie in a supermarket in "Zombieland."

Gore, violence and fun in ‘Zombieland’

Let’s admit it. Zombies are cool.

And there’s many things cool about “Zombieland.”

For one thing, it has a real sense of humor.

It’s also pretty gross and gory.

It’s flippant and funny and irreverent.

It also doesn’t take any of the plot time determining how the vast majority of the world’s population has become zombies.

It started with a mad cow-like disease that causes peoples’ brains to swell and causes them to go berserk. That’s it. That’s all you need to know.

Jesse Eisenberg is Columbus. It’s not actually his name. Every character in the film is nicknamed by where he or she is from. Jesse’s character is from Columbus, Ohio.

The film opens with Columbus narrating. He tells us he’s learned to survive in a world full of screaming, vicious, blood-spewing zombies.

He explains when killing a zombie, hit or shoot them twice, to make sure they are dead. Always make sure you have an escape plan. Don’t be a hero.

Columbus tells how he first learned about the zombies. His sexy neighbor knocks on the door, scared because this mysterious person chased and tried to bite her. Nerdy Columbus can’t believe his good fortune. The frightened beauty falls asleep on his shoulder on his couch.

Ah but soon she awakens as a crazed zombie, vomiting blood all over poor Columbus. The guy can’t get a break. He’s able to kill the first of many zombies he will dispatch in this film.

On the road, Columbus meets up with Tallahassee, played by Woody Harrelson. They hook up, looking for the fabled region of the country where there are no zombies.

Harrelson’s character says those living in the East say the Zombieless area is in the West and vice versa.

Columbus hopes maybe Columbus is free of zombies.

Harrelson is on a quest for Twinkies. So the pair stop at a zombie-infested supermarket where they have to kill zombies before they can shop.

There they meet up with Wichita, played by Emma Stones, and her 12-year-old sister, Little Rock, played by Abigail Breslin, who seems to be everywhere these days.

The weakest point of the film is there’s not a whole lot of plot. They stumble into a Beverly Hills mansion searching for what they can find.

Lo and behold, it belongs to actor Bill Murray. What happens there is not only bizarre but pretty funny.

The girls decide they want to attend a local amusement park. Although not open, all of the rides still work and the two girls figure out how to operate each one.

When they show up, huge numbers of zombies appear, licking their chops.

Let me tell you, they hired the ugliest extras ever or there were truckloads of makeup artists on the set of this film.

It was a fun diversion and a must for zombie lovers. The gore abounds but there is so much of it, you get numb to it.

So grab your munchies and get ready for a gorefest.

As an aside, I saw this film in the Blu-Ray format, using a version of BD Live called movie IQ. What that means is if you have your player hooked to the Internet, you can get interesting information about the film when an icon appears in the upper right of the TV screen.

Don’t bother with this option. When the icon appears, we simply get a rehash of who these actors are and something about the location of the screening.

After the icon appeared a few times, I decided it wasn’t worth pushing the button and ignored it the rest of the film.

ZOMBIELAND

• Directed by Ruben Fleischer

• Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick

• Rated R for horror violence¼ gore and language

• Runtime: 88 minutes

• 2 1/2 stars out of 4