Quirky characters liven up static zombie comedy

It’s becoming vogue to combine the seemingly separate genres of horror and comedy, but it’s a tight line to walk. For every Shaun of the Dead or Slither, you have a Zombie Strippers! or a Snakes on a Plane, turning even the most novel idea into a rambling train wreck that doesn’t know where its heart lies. But as charismatic lead Woody Harrelson proclaims near the beginning of the film, “It’s time to nut up or shut up” — and Zombieland definitely isn’t the kind of movie that plays it soft.

Stylistic, vulgar, rapidly paced and edited, Zombieland pulls no punches from the opening montage, where protagonist Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) fills us in on the apocalyptic wasteland that is now planet Earth. A neurotic college student who spends his days and nights playing World of Warcraft, Columbus has a self-insulation from society that actually makes him a natural-born survivor; as he tells it, being wary of other people has progressed to being wary of zombies. Over a sequence of violent and riveting shots of America descending into chaos, he lists a number of often hilarious guidelines that he uses as rules for staying alive, such as Rule No. 3: “Always check the back seat,” or Rule No. 1: Cardio.

“All the fat people died first,” Columbus deadpans.

Along his travels through America, Columbus eventually meets up with Tallahassee, the shotgun-toting, whiskey-drinking redneck played by Harrelson, who requests they only be known by the cities they originated in. Zombieland doesn’t bring anything revolutionary to the end-of-the-world yarn; the unlikely duo teams up, meets another unlikely duo in sisters Wichita and Little Rock (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin, respectively) and makes a journey filled with twists and turns that ends up in a Los Angeles amusement park.

Zombieland is a script that begs to be filled out, a thin plotline running westward across America with little to no purpose besides a vague mentioning of the final destination as one free of zombies (in Los Angeles? Sure!). Of course the similarly aged Columbus and Wichita are going to find romance. Of course the rock-hard Tallahassee is revealed to have a tender side and a tragic past. Of course there is going to be the obligatory amounts of gunplay and gratuitous gore that Shaun of the Dead made acceptable. And, of course, there’s going to be a wild ending that doesn’t make half as much sense as it’s supposed to.

But surprisingly enough, despite its thin plot, a seen-it-before style and stereotypical characters, something about Zombieland just clicks. Much of the credit goes to Harrelson and Eisenberg, the latter doing his best Michael Cera imitation and coming off less a bland clone and more a hilarious, accurate representation of a maladjusted young adult thrust into a situation where he routinely has to blow some heads off. The former, meanwhile, clearly steals the show: A brash, confrontational vagrant who seems to have found his calling in offing zombies in the most creative ways possible and has an odd craving for Twinkies. Harrelson has the best lines by far and relishes every second, turning his beer-swilling cowboy caricature into the most badass protagonist in any zombie movie in recent memory. The two play off each other effortlessly, Columbus the straight man to Tallahassee’s lovably unhinged warrior.

Even better, first-time director Ruben Fleischer moves the action along fluidly, and the comedy or horror never feels stunted or too heavily weighted in favor of one or another. These zombies are fast (think 28 Days Later) and mean; when the camera zooms in on their ravaged faces and vomiting mouths, you’ll forget all about witty one-liners. Although Stone essentially re-plays Jules from Superbad with a penchant for thievery and an itchy trigger finger, Breslin seems to be finally shedding her prepubescent image here. And while the movie veers toward the unrealistic when the foursome reaches Los Angeles (something tells me post-apocalyptic Los Angeles wouldn’t include deserted freeways), it also holds the movie’s best part, a hilarious drawn-out cameo that I won’t ruin here.

It’s a movie that sets out to have as much fun as possible, and, from Tallahassee’s relentless hunt for Twinkies to Columbus’ laughably awkward heroics, it without a doubt succeeds. Zombieland won’t break any new ground in the horror-comedy world like its biggest influences, nor will it receive any points for creativity, but it is a movie that will entertain again and again. In the end, that’s perfectly OK.