Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)

Movie Info

Come back for another vacation in Zombieland

The years have passed since Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) met up, but Zombieland marches on.  Holed up in the White House, things seem to be going well…but some problems are unsolvable.  Columbus wants more from Wichita, and Little Rock wants to grow up.  Tallahassee still dreams of the world, and Columbus just wants home to feel like home.  When Little Rock ends up running away with a hippie, pacifist called Berkeley (Avan Jogia), the gang must get her back, but Columbus has a plus-one named Madison (Zoey Deutch) and a new breed of zombies mean Zombieland is getting more dangerous by the minute.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer, Zombieland:  Double Tap is a zombie comedy-horror sequel.  Following Zombieland in 2009, the film was released to better than average reviews but not to the level of the original.

Zombieland was a fun movie in a mess of zombie-themed media.  The film didn’t take itself seriously, but it still had hints of horror that kept it from just being a straight comedy.  Zombieland:  Double Tap has the same themes, feels slightly less original, and is a bit gorier.

This joke killed…when they did it in Shaun of the Dead in 2004

The story is a little more fleshed out in Zombieland:  Double Tap, but part of the joy of the original movie was the simplicity.  It was a story of people coming together…the zombies were almost incidental.  Zombieland:  Double Tap has the same theme, but the zombies almost play a bigger role.  It is about growing up and is still is about defining “family”, but it doesn’t have quite the level of fun of the original.

The cast still works and they’ve grown into their roles.  The unrealistic aspect of this story is that I feel that the characters would have reached this breaking point much sooner, but Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin still feel like a family unit.  Zoey Deutch is a nice one or two joke pony, but it felt like her character was around too long (and it was obvious that she wasn’t dead…and that it was an allergic reaction).  Rosario Dawson was a good addition, but the joke with Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch was almost identical to the joke in Shaun of the Dead (which did it better).  The movie also features cameos by Bill Murray and Al Roker.

….and she’s back…shock.

The original movie wasn’t “not gory”, but it also hid slightly more of the gore.  Here, the gore is more prevalent and with the rise of shows like The Walking Dead, it makes a bit more sense.  You see a lot more head crushing in this show than it felt like you saw in Zombieland, but the zombies are pretty unoriginal (even the T-800s).

Zombieland:  Double Tap is fine.  It isn’t the best movie, but it is an ok sequel to a good movie.  With the theme of “every ten years”, I wouldn’t mind revisit the characters and see what they are doing later.  I almost wish zombies hadn’t been a thing in this movie since it is assumed that zombies need food too, and food is scarce.  Maybe Zombieland 3:  Teamwork could be all about how the characters relationships hold together when zombies aren’t a factor…we might have to wait till 2029 to find out.

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Zombieland (2009)