So I checked out Zombieland: Double Tap… the ten-years-later sequel to the pretty good zombie comedy Zombieland. That movie was a little bit into the zombie fixation in movies and tv… this new one is arguably at the end. It’s also ten years later for the cast who, as the trailers are amused to point out, all either have an Oscar or are Oscar nominees. Fun cast for fun trash, I think is the message.
So Zombieland 2 is… half a good movie, half a navel-gazing kind of bore. I dunno… I laughed fairly consistently at the first half and then the movie started to go down hill. It lost what little focus it had and kind of shambles around looking for for things to joke about. Plus it starts to really, really hyper-focus on what it thinks is funny which is largely retread jokes from the first movie (mainly it thinks the rules of zombieland are the funniest thing anyone ever joked about… and it ain’t).
But there is a plot… our four heroes from the first flick have, ten years into the zombie apocalypse, taken up residence in the White House (last resident: Obama). When two of the crew split, the remainder pick up a dumb blonde companion (insert many, many dumb blonde jokes) and eventually go on a road trip to find the rest of the team. Insert various jokes about vehicles Woody Harrelson’s character doesn’t want to drive, Graceland and Elvis (who Woody Harrelson’s character loves), and hippies (and how much Woody Harrelson’s character hates them). This movie is also very much in love with Woody Harrelson’s character, fyi. I guess all the Twinkie jokes were just that funny the first time around.
Yeah, the movie is more-or-less fine. I mean, if you liked the first one, I guess go so the sequel. Maybe the overly long and kind of aimless second half of the flick won’t bother you. Maybe it shouldn’t bother me… it’s not like I was looking for some deep philosophy of the nature of humanity in my zombie comedy. I still think it should have been more focused and spent less time on repetitive jokes that might have worked the first couple times but here they drive them into the ground.
Score: 74