Zombieland

The funniest thing about Zombieland was the conversation I had with my friend after watching the movie. First, a bit of an embarassing admission: As much as I enjoy movies, I am often not very good at remembering actors and actresses names and faces. In fact, for the longest time I thought Laura Linney and Frances McDormand were the same person.

So with that in mind, as we were leaving the theatre, my friend said, "You could tell that the studio really wanted Michael Cera for that role [of Columbus]."

"That name sounds familiar," I replied. "Who is Michael Cera?"

"You know, the guy from Juno and Superbad."

I gave him a puzzled look, "Huh? We didn't just watch him for 90 minutes?"

"Uhhh..No, that was some guy pretending to be Michael Cera."

At that point I had one of those face-palm moments where I realized once again I watched an entire movie thinking the primary actor was someone else. In my defense, my friend was right. It was as if the studio had designed the role exclusively for Cera, had not been able to get him, and had found his closest doppelganger and forced him to watch every Michael Cera movie to emulate his speech and mannerisms. So my suggestion to anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet is to just be oblivious like me and pretend it really is Cera playing Columbus.

As far as the movie itself goes, I think it qualifies as 2-for-2 in my movie disappointment scorecard this year. District 9 - the last movie I went to with high expectations based on word-of-mouth and critic's reviews - also failed to deliver. And both left an equally disappointing feeling afterwards.

To be fair, Zombieland had some good moments. But it certainly was not that funny, or that campy, or that clever. The movie didn't really have any plot other than some cheesy climax of people learning to be happy with what you have and "love the one you're with." So you had to be content with random zombie encounters and their inevitable gory slaying. Those, plus an extended Bill Murray cameo.

My favorite part was the survival "rules" that Columbus had, and which they kept displaying at any opportune moment. But at the same time they felt like a gimmick that has been used before in other movies (I've been struggling to verify this and have come up empty, so maybe I'm mistaken here). Also the Woody Harrelson (Tallahasee) and Michael Cera want-to-be pairing was great. My favorite scene was when Columbus sprays Tallahassee with perfume, tries to stammer an apology, and Tallahasee tells him, "I've kicked major ass for a lot less than that. I'm gonna give you about 45% power," then delivers a punch.

To sum it up, I would say to go see Zombieland if you want some mindless (pun intended) entertainment for an hour and a half. It might get you in the Halloween spirit a little, and give you some escapism, but don't go in expecting to laugh hysterically or be caught in suspense.