Zombieland — Nothin’ but fun

The plot: The zombie apocalypse has occurred, and bands of survivors are out there surviving in the ruined landscape of America (and presumably the rest of the world). That’s pretty much it. It’s a zombie movie. It’s the journey, not the destination, because there are zombies pretty much everywhere at this point.

The verdict: This movie is fun, pure and simple. It never takes itself too seriously, with worrying about how the zombie virus came from, or dealing with the existential dread that the world is ending. The characters in this movie are loners by nature, and do very well for themselves because of it (also, there are lessons on the value of proper cardio training when there’s the distinct possibility you’re going to be chased by flesh-eating ghouls at any moment).

The movie plays out like kind of like the video game “Dead Rising” (which was itself based on “Dawn of the Dead”), and I mean that in the best possible way, because “Dead Rising” rocked. Thematically, the film is reminiscent of “Shaun of the Dead,” but a much-more Americanized version of it (complete with “zombie apocalypses are no time to be stingy when it comes to ammunition” lessons). There’s not as much gore as you might expect, although my wife might disagree with that statement (she’s more of a “traveling pants” kinda gal, whereas I think that film would have been much better if the pants would have traveled of their own volition across the countryside, but I digress). All the actors in general, and Woody Harrelson in particular, seem to be having a great time, and it translates to the audience very nicely. I’m already waiting for the sequel, and if they’d like to make a really good video game from this film, I’d be down with that, too. Who doesn’t like zombies (in theory)?

Interesting Tidbits:

• The idea of “Zombieland” was intended to be a pilot for a television series, and was sold as a spec script for CBS (!) in 2005. The first third of the film was to be the first episode, and the remainder would have been the second episode. When CBS chose to pass on the idea (sure, Angela Lansbury can stumble across upwards of 200 corpses in “Murder She Wrote,” but zombies every week would be too much, I suppose). Sony TV picked up the idea as a two-hour made-for-TV film back-door pilot, but the idea would have been too big for that, so a full-fledged film was commissioned. The “Zombie Kill of the Week” was a leftover from the proposed television series. I’ve heard far worse ideas, and seen far worse shows on television; seriously, step away from the vampires, people.

• Not to give away the celebrity cameo, but the writers thought of using Patrick Swazye (which would have been a really unfortunate turn of event for the filmmakers), Mark Hamill and Jean Claude Van Damme (one of the lines would have been “Hey! WWJCVDD?”)

• Why does the amusement park at the end still have power? Well, the film is set out west (although it was actually filmed in Georgia), and Hoover Dam would provide power for that area for about three years without human intervention (Thanks, History Channel’s “Life After People”!)