It is about 2:30 AM as I start to write this. I mention this because this means that what I'd have to say would be pretty lackluster, since I should be sleeping and such. Also, I haven't read any reviews for the movie, which means that I don't have anything good to steal from.
By that... of course, I mean that by not reading the reviews, I don't know what's been covered ad nauseum at this point, thus not making this review as fresh and interesting as it could possibly be.
Anyway. I'm just going to say the obvious: it's a fun little movie. Woody Harrelson is fun. Jesse Eisenberg is properly dorky. The cameo is pretty f'n cool (but could have been cooler! But alas, I don't want to talk about it because for some reason I'm feeling anti-spoiler at the moment. Even though I'll give away other inessential parts about the movie.) It's a fun little romp that has fun with the whole zombie genre, which is good, you know?
Some weird things about this movie:
-I saw the writers to this movie were Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, which for some reason I recognized. Then all of a sudden it hit me that they were the writers (creators?) of The Joe Schmo Show, which a) was a show I stumbled upon and loved back in the day, b) despite its seemingly mean-spirited premise, had probably the most forgiving and kind editing in the history of reality TV (which, since reality TV is all about editing and making people out to be larger-than-life characters, is quite refreshing), and c) featured Kristen Wiig before she landed on SNL. So the fact that they were behind this made me want to like the movie A LOT.
-Unfortunately, there are a few problems I had with it. One of the ways we are introduced to the main character is by these rules he lives by in a post-apocalyptic zombie world. These serve to show what it takes to survive, how neurotic our main character is, and to provide a humorous call back when one of the rules comes into play again. However, these rules are conveyed with this blocky, part-on-the-action text that is kind of distracting, and seems sort of in bad taste. And plus, whenever a rule came into play again, the blocky text would show up... which would AGAIN remind me how ugly it is while pissing me off for being kind of unnecessary. Not a HUGE deal, but kind of distracting.
-What's great about movies like this is that they are endearingly stupid. They know that you're showing up to see a bunch of zombies get killed in humorous ways, so they don't have much of a plot. Which is good because usually if films like this focus too much on plot and character development, neither the story nor the carnage come off particularly well. For the most part the carnage here is fun and well executed, but the character development? Eh. They had the obligatory romance and all, which is fine, but they were trying too hard in getting us involved with the romance. Dude, I just want to see zombies get crushed by a roller coaster. I understand the need for a bit of romance and such, but still.
This reminds me why I like Snakes On A Plane so much. The first 20 minutes or so is a bunch of back story, crappy character development, etc. And then, when the snakes show up... all that character development gets thrown out the window so they can bring you all the action. And then, *just* right before the movie ends, they get back to the story. It sort of feels like a nod to me, saying that they realize the need for a bit of character back story and such, but know that you just want to see snakes bite peoples' dicks, so they intentionally make the back stories as half assed as possible. I like that.
-Also, there was sort of a theme of "shedding a bit of your inner nerdness and getting out and enjoying life." Which is cool and everything, but sort of weird since the whole movie felt like a videogame.
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So yeah. It was entertaining. Plus, it was short. Good 80 minute popcorn flicks are always a welcome treat in my book.
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