Zombieland: Double Tap
(Columbia Pictures)
By Lucas Allen
The first “Zombieland,” 10 years ago, had audiences gasping and giggling with its meta-view on the zombie subgenre. Now we have the unexpected entrance of the follow-up “Zombieland: Double Tap,” which will have to call upon the faithful to reignite the phenomenon. It’s once again directed by Ruben Fleischer of the previous year’s “Venom,” while writing duties are handled by the guys behind “Deadpool.”
The sequel picks up on the further adventures of Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone, and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) heading across the country hunting the zombies. Upon stopping at the White House, complications arise when the two sisters venture out on their own. Heartbroken, Columbus ends up finding another girl, Madison (Zoey Deutch), who survived by living in a freezer.
Upon her return, Wichita reveals her little sister left her for an older guy, Berkeley (Avan Jogia), who’s a pacifist taking her to a populated peaceful town, Babylon. Naturally upset, Tallahassee brings the others with him to try to bring the youngest one back.
Along the way, they discover that an evolved version of the zombie dubbed the “T-800” for being nearly unstoppable. They also run into some odd characters, including Nevada (Rosario Dawson), who shares the same obsession with Elvis as Tallahassee. Plus, there’s another zombie-killing duo, Albuquerque (Luke Wilson) and Flagstaff (Thomas Middleditch), that bears some resemblance to some of the other characters. Upon entering the hippie utopia, the group realizes they’ll have to save everybody from an incoming swarm of T-800 zombies.
Comedy sequels are a tricky thing to pull off, especially when they come out many years after the previous one. Though it’s been 10 years, the sequel feels like a nice return to this humorous world of zombie battling and satirical horror. It’s basically telling some of the same jokes that are still just as funny as before, while they do try to add some fresh ideas like new characters and new locations that’s necessary to the plot. If you’re a fan of the first film, you’ll find plenty to enjoy including some fun cameos in the mid-credits scene.
Most of the film’s tone is comedy rather than horror as the zombies play second fiddle to the main characters. When the monsters are getting shot at, it mainly plays for laughs rather than shock value. Because the subgenre is already over-saturated in media, it’s hard to enjoy zombies walking or running when it was fresher coming from the likes of George Romero. That’s becoming a drawback for this film and recent seasons of The Walking Dead when there’s already real-life zombies in the form of young people staring at their phones. Then again, people seem to enjoy killing zombies in video games more than watching them eat people on screen.
All the previous film’s actors return to their roles very well and fans will be happy to see. Harrelson is hilarious at his best, while Eisenberg is simply being Eisenberg like he’s still playing Mark Zuckerberg or Lex Luthor. Stone, Breslin and Dawson bring some girl power to the proceedings, but Deutch is just playing a joke character that goes on too long and could’ve been cut down.
“Zombieland: Double Tap” is a sequel as entertaining as it is though it’s more like it was made mainly for fans of the first film. If you didn’t like the original or just burned out by the zombie subgenre, this film is not going to change your mind. Still you could do worse than this like paying full theater price for an edited-down PG-13 horror film.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: R (for bloody violence, language throughout, some drug and sexual content)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 3 Stars (Out of Four)
