Anyone seen this yet? It looks like it will probably be a pretty good movie to go see on my birthday. So far, the critical response seems mostly positive:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/zombieland/

http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/zombieland

I haven't read World War Z, but I wonder if Zombieland will end up stealing a little bit of thunder from the upcoming film adaptation.

Haven't seen it, but happy birthday!

Saw it last week. It's great. A lot of fun. Gory, funny, with one part featuring....well, I shouldn't spoil it. They're not reinventing the wheel here, and for anyone who's attended Romero University, there's nothing new. And yeah, we got fast moving zombie here. But it works, in the context of the movie.But it's got a real Rock'N'Roll attitude, right down to the choice of music, it's well cast, with Woody Harrelson's "Badass" hombre playing off Jesse Eisenberg's "nerd" quite well, and the whole thing moves very fast and never gets too post modern or "cute" with the humor. And boy is LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE's Abigail Breslin growing up fast.

All in all, very entertaining.

Happy Birthday Doran. Go treat yourself :)

Cute but slim. The funny cameo is really funny! But this does play out as the American SHAUN OF THE DEAD, with every implication you could think of about how the difference in countries would influence the tone, style, overall plot, willingness to gloss it up. The on-screen animated rules gag should really have been dropped after the first five minutes (Look, this one breaks! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!) and the Twinkies gag doesn't really pay off.

I enjoyed it, but I'm starting to get the sneaky feeling that part of getting older in a mass market culture is getting to see a lot of things on the big screen about ten years after you'd really have any interest in seeing them.

I remember coming across one review that compared Zombieland favorably to Shaun of the Dead but considered Zombieland superior because it doesn't have any of the sentimentality that SOTD pulls out toward the end (I only saw SOTD once a few years ago, but I don't remember this element of the movie bothering me much). Would you share that opinion?

My birthday is actually next weekend, but thanks!

Both have sentimentality, but I thought SHAUN's were more earned as honest, emotional moments (even the ones that seem like throwaways, like the moment between Shaun and his step-dad), simply because SHAUN has a more deft handle on treating the threat of the scenario as a threat, and not just a mass playground for slaughter and gory slapstick that's only threatening when the filmmaker's need it to be.

But they're both very different in tone, so ZOMBIELAND's approach is in keeping with the world they've created. I just think SHAUN, because it envisioned the scenario in a different way, is more honest.

Saw it last night and really had fun. I can understand the comparisons to SHAUN, but the films are different enough. There was more seriousness to SHAUN even while piling on the Romero references. That what I loved about SHAUN and HOT FUZZ, all the little moments between the craziness. I always love a good zombie film though and both are very good. ZOMBIELAND was a real treat to watch with an audience too.

Guess I'm in the minority on this one. I didn't dislike it, but I got pretty bored with it after 20 mins or so. The set-up is good, and the opening credits sequence is awesome, but it quickly runs out of ideas and just putters along. Slight doesn't begin to describe it. Take out the surprise cameo and it's about 75 minutes long. And even the initial laugh of the cameo turns into a sequence that just drags along to its inevitable conclusion (the "Any regrets?" response was great, though). I know it's unfair to compare it to SHAUN OF THE DEAD, but ANY zombie comedy pales in comparison. ZOMBIELAND might be great for people who've never seen a zombie comedy, and it might've played better on DVD than on the big screen, but...I dunno, I really wanted to like this, but color me very mildly amused and very much underwhelmed. I was ready for this thing to be over long before it finally was.

And I know it's a comedy, but even by dumb comedy standards, the whole sequence at the amusement park with just DUMB. Lights? Rides? Noise? Possibly the dumbest ever move by a protagonist in a zombie film. Even dumber than the dancing fool in Mattei's HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD.

Well, it opened big. $25 million in 3 days.

yeah, i agree with mark. it started out awesome, but really kind of left me empty in the end. it was a fun movie, but nothing near the "classicness" of shaun of the dead.

i thought the soundtrack was awful. too much metal...

does that kid act like michael cera in every movie, or was he just doing it in this one?

Yeah, Jesse Eisenberg's limitations are starting to show now that he's been in a few things. He was good in ROGER DODGER and THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, but he's starting to play essentially the same character (or at least one with the same mannerisms and demeanor) now every time I see him (ADVENTURELAND, ZOMBIELAND). I'm not sure if he's acting like Cera or if Cera's acting like him, but they do seem to have similar personas. It's inevitable that they'll team up at some point.

Ha. This comes up in the Adventureland commentary, I think it was. It's insisted that Eisenberg was doing Michael Cera before Michael Cera was doing Michael Cera. :)

Saw this tonight and thought it was great fun. Not something I'd revisit but certainly entertaining. Some very funny moments and the audience loved it.

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Like 28 DAYS, these aren't really zombies but that's okay(*) - the film isn't about them, or the plight of the world. The cameo was terrific and earned the most laughs. Predictable but twisted outcome, don't you think? For an uptight guy who lives by codes and rules and hasn't the courage to kiss a girl, he sure gets over murder pretty easily.

Victor

(*) remind me...aren't we supposed to complain if they call them zombies but they're not really dead - just infected? I remember everyone giving out about 28 DAYS but hang on a minute, aren't zombies by their original definition just stoned or hypnotised humans?

I saw this last night. I don't have much more to add than saying that if you have a little tradition of seeing a movie on your birthday every year and there's not much else playing near you, it will probably fit the bill just fine. Really gotta disagree with whoever it was who said that it was superior to and less sentimental than Shaun of the Dead. In fact, I would probably say that this is sort of a "lite" version of that film.

Overall it was pretty entertaining (I think that its relatively brief running time works in its favor), but aside from the part with the "special guest star," (you probably know who it is if you've read any reviews) probably not all that memorable. It seems kind of appropriate that the Woody Harrelson character is so focused on finding a Twinkie since this seems to be sort of the movie equivalent of a Twinkie. I'm certainly not above enjoying the occasional Twinkie (my preferred junk food confection of choice is the Little Debbie Zebra Cake), but you probably shouldn't expect much more out of this movie than that.

I don't think anyone's mentioned that there's a little post-credit "cookie" featuring the "special guest star" that's worth sticking around for.

Haven't seen the movie, but someone should do a movie/sketch where what appears to be a zombie invasion is just a normal day at WalMart. Unless that IS the premise of ZOMBIELAND.

Have you seen this site? I have a feeling that you would probably enjoy it.

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

That statement would be true if a film by the name of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD wasn't released in 1985. B)

And Dead/Alive.

I wasn't all that entertained by Zombieland. Wasn't bored, but it just came across like a TV movie written by sitcom writers and sprinkled with gore. Pretty dumb stuff... not clever dumb, just lazy dumb. Can't-find-its-own-ass-with-both-hands-and-a-friend-spotting-with-a-GPS dumb.

And I know I'm in a serious minority here, but I thought that the cameo handjob for a fading A-lister stopped the film dead in its tracks. Not that it was making good time to begin with, but still...

And also... a mall movie that features a voiceover that goes on all the way to the end credits? Have the Suits finally given up being coy and just assume that their target demographic is comprised solely of mouthbreathers?

ETA: Actually, I'm coming down on the side of "It's a piece of shit."

Count me in on the meh side, too. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was amusing and a mildly fun way to pass the time, but that's it. Plus, for a movie called Zombieland I thought there were surprisingly few zombies actually in it! For a land that's gone to the dead, they were pretty thin on the ground - especially in the middle section.

Mind you, talking of end-of-the-world movies, did anyone notice that 2012 was playing at the Chinese theatre in Hollywood in this movie?

Yeah... with that and Ghostbusters, Columbia got in some good crosspromotion.