Red flags can maybe equal the country of Russia or something involving a sport of some kind, but in the movie-making business, it represents an awful, artificial recipe for especially a bad movie.
Specificially, the worst example of a bad movie is a tremendously awful comedy sequel no one even asked for at all. Last year in 2018, Jay Chandrasekhar made “Super Troopers 2” while the year before in 2017, both “A Bad Moms Christmas” and “Daddy’s Home 2” ended up getting released during the FIRST TWO WEEKS OF NOVEMBER!
That had to be absolute torture for the turbulence.
Enough of my ranting because the clever Mr. Rhett Reese and Mr. Paul Wernick prove that they can write not just one, but two really good sequels from their predecessors (the other being “Deadpool 2”). “Zombieland: Double Tap” breaks the insidious curse of bad comedy sequels and makes it even as entertaining as the first one from 2009.
10 years after the zombie-killing gang invaded those zealots at a carnival, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) all now live in the abandoned White House. They are now survivors of the last zombie apocalypse meaning that they have an expertise of identifying zombies.
This movie then showcases two plots going on at once where one is involving Little Rock’s hopes to be at Graceland with a hipster named Berkley because of Tallahassee still treating her like a child. The other is of course Wichita being too attached to Columbus. Both Little Rock and Wichita write a note with those reasons towards Columbus and Tallahassee.
A new member joins their gang whom is a dumb blonde named Madison (played by Zoey Deutsch), where both Tallahassee and Columbus later discover her at a vacant mall. Columbus soon gets attracted by Madison, but this gains a negative reaction towards Columbus’ girlfriend Wichita.
The gang then discover this new breed of zombie called “The T-800”, which it takes many shots to kill rather than a regular zombie taking two shots to kill hence Columbus’ second rule “Double Tap”.
However, their main mission for real is to rescue Little Rock from Graceland and to brave the next zombie apocalypse to come.
A lot of plot, right?
To be deeply honest, I liked the first “Zombieland” quite a bit, but I wasn’t quite a huge fan of it. From seeing the trailer of the second installment, I knew that it was going to recover Ruben Fleischer’s string of critical disappointments through the past (“Venom”, “30 Minutes or Less”, and “Gangster Squad”) and it really did.
“Zombieland: Double Tap” is a comedy sequel unlike most other ones that genuinely put the happiest smile on my face and has pretty much the same energy and charisma as the original did back in 2009.
Seeing all of the original cast members grown up shooting up raw zombie guts set to Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” during the opening credits was something to endulge for. You could totally tell this was a homage to the first one’s use of another Metallica banger “For Whom the Bell Tolls”.
I am not going to say the movie is perfect because OF COURSE it is a no- brainer zombie flick. As much as the non-Zombieland fan I am, I prefer the first over the second because comedy sequels aren’t usually as good as the original. That is saying a lot.
The main fault with this installment is how Fleischer handles Abigail Breslin’s older version of Little Rock. With her being all grown up, she was probably the only one of the four I was a little disappointed with because she acted like a Hot Topic hipster throughout.
That and how her plot with her hipster boyfriend Berkeley just felt like the film’s main weakest points.
Also, the characters that are played by Thomas Middleditch, Luke Wilson, and Rosario Dawson aren’t really in the movie as much.
As much as these flaws pertain, Fleischer makes this sequel one of the better and funnier comedy sequels in recent memory recapturing the same mood and tone of what made the original so good.
I examined this one as more of a comedy than a horror/comedy because the first “Zombieland” was more so a horror film than a comedy paying homages to George A. Romero’s classic “Night of the Living Dead”.
Columbus once again narrates this installment in great harmony introducing us new zombies including a zombie literally named Homer from “The Simpsons”.
I like how Fleischer established Columbus’ and Wichita’s romantic relationship where the viewers get to see if they can still get married and vision their future.
The biggest surprise of this movie for me is Ms. Zoey Deutch as the dumb blonde Madison. Movies like “Dirty Grandpa” and “Flower” truly proved that I wasn’t a huge fan of her comedic chops. This film proved that she could play the biggest nut case Columbus could ever hook up to, but in a more hysterical fashion.
Except for Abigail Breslin, every one of the lead actors that return (Eisenberg, Harrelson, Stone) still have their jive after ten years.
Woody Harrelson still is crazy good characterizing Tallahassee to the point where he gets to dress up as Santa Claus during the first act of the film. I am not joking.
The team of Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Ruben Fleischer took the right notes to make “Zombieland: Double Tap” a fresh return after a decade hiatus and much unnecessary development hell. That is how you truly do an entertaining comedy sequel.
Please stay during the end credits.
Grade: 7/10
