Zombieland

All of the hype for this movie built me up a little too much. I was ready to love it, but I thought it was only OK. Superbad-meets-Shaun-of-the-Dead is pretty much spot-on, esp. since Superbad is another movie about which I was a little too hopeful and turned out to be merely OK.

This type of lead character, these neutered, post-ironic hipster, corduroy-wearing twigs, they are some kind of offshoot of the Harry Potter "make the losers and geeks in your audience comfortable by showing that they'll win" school of thinking.

The beginning of the movie was badass. The opening credits were fucking fantastic, the Rules of Survival and accompanying montage of the fall of civilization were perfect. So it was disappointing that though movie begins by setting up its own level of realism, it ever-more-indifferently ignores those rules as it progresses. The Tallahassee moment later in the film was... difficult; they'd set the man up to be a cartoon character, and provided lots of support for that, then they give him an actual moment of pathos. Then right back to Savage Steve Holland levels of comicbook laffs and violence. Gah, I'm arguing realism in a movie about zombies. A comedy about zombies. Please someone offer this thought process the double-tap.

All I can say is that I own the special edition of Shaun of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, and even Resident Evil (!!!) but this one won't make it into my collection.