Zombieland: Double Tap

First Hit: There are some wonderfully funny moments in this zombie spoof.

Ten years after the original Zombieland, the same characters are back, older, wiser, and ready to take on the ever-evolving zombies. To this end, the team talks about the three different types of zombies, but then they learn about the high powered zombies.

Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jessie Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) are still roaming the eastern part of the United States, taking what they want, living where they want, and killing all the Zombies that come their way.

The women are struggling with the men. Little Rock is feeling out of sorts because she’s running around with adults, and she would like to find people her own age. Wichita is feeling pressured by Columbus to get married. Adding to the women’s misery, Tallahassee thinks he’s the boss of this motley crew and spends most of his time tinkering with The Beast, the Gatling gun protected car.

Deciding to take residence in the White House, things come to a head. Little Rock and Wichita steal The Beast and leave a cryptic note for the men saying “so long.”

Wichita and Little Rock run into a young hippy they call Berkeley (Avan Jogia), who is a pacifist guitar-playing guy looking for Babylon. A place he says, where no guns allowed, and the compound is walled off to protect the residents from the zombies.

Columbus runs into Madison (Zoey Deutch) at a mall that he and Tallahassee are pilfering. She’s a dumb blonde who has been living in a freezer that keeps her safe from the zombies. She goes back to the White House with him and seduces him.

Little Rock leaves her sister Wichita to run off with Berkeley in search of Graceland and then maybe Babylon. Alone, Wichita comes back to the White House to ask Tallahassee and Columbus to help her find her younger sister. But as soon as she gets there, she confronts Columbus for sleeping with Madison so quickly after she had left.

Deciding to stay together, they head out to find Little Rock, fearing she’s making a mistake. The journey has them killing lots of zombies on their way to Graceland, thinking that is where Little Rock was headed. After seeing Graceland empty, they find the church of Elvis and find Nevada (Rosario Dawson) running the joint, alone. Ready to rest before heading out again, The Beast is run over and crushed by a monster truck driven by Albuquerque (Luke Wilson) and Flagstaff (Thomas Middleditch).

With Albuquerque and Flagstaff acting just like Tallahassee and Columbus, respectively, there are moments of great full-throated laughs through the one-ups-man-ship of these four guys. The back and forth is priceless.

The theme of this film is outrageous fun through gags and props. Some of the accessories are; The Beast, the suburban van, the motorhome, Babylon (pronounced by Madison as “Baby lon”), and who killed Bill Murray. Murray is shown in the opening minutes of the ending credits, stay for this. Even Elvis gets his due in this film.

Harrelson is hilarious. He uses sincere looks while going through his mood swings. But the underlying smirk of amusement and self-deprecating humor makes his performance thoroughly enjoyable. Eisenberg was excellent as the semi-cautious list-making member of this crew. Stone is terrific as Eisenberg’s love interest and older sister to Little Rock. Breslin has physically changed more than anyone of the other actors in this crew because she was very young in the original film. She carried her scenes with strength. Deutch was so much fun as the dumb blonde. She made this role work exceptionally well, and I enjoyed her as an addition to this team. Dawson was beautiful as the proprietor of the church of Elvis. Wilson and Middleditch were great as memes of Harrelson and Eisenberg respectively. The swagger of Wilson and the nerdiness of Middleditch were correctly done. Jogla, as Berkeley, the hippie, was OK. I just didn’t think he brought the same level of humor and fun to his role. Murray, in the credits, was excellent. Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Dave Callahan wrote a fun script. They didn’t try to make it too close to the first film and just let the fun be expressed in this one. Ruben Fleischer did an excellent job of directing this film with a loose fun-filled feel while keeping the story logical and moving.

Overall: This film was a great follow-up to the original.

Gangster Squad

First Hit:  Violent and overdone.

This film is loosely based on the take down of Mickey Cohen as the gangster supreme in LA. Cohen (played by Sean Penn) came from the East to run LA for the mob.

The Chicago syndicate is finding Cohen to be unruly and not following their orders. The reality is that Cohen wants it all for himself. At a meeting with a Chicago representative he tells him that he’s old and will not follow Chicago’s rules. The funny thing is that Penn looked older than the guy he was talking to. Then there was Nick Nolte playing Chief Parker and quite frankly they needed to pick someone else.

To rein in Cohen, Parker gives Sargent John O’Mara (played by Josh Brolin) the freedom to pull together other cops who will leave their badges at home and stop Cohen any way they want. Sergeant Jerry Wooters (played by Ryan Gosling) is one of the people he chooses. He’s chosen because he’s smart and has a similar history as O’Mara.

One of the more difficult things is that Wooters has fallen in love with Cohen’s girlfriend Grace Faraday (played by Emma Stone). The film’s plot isn’t that interesting and the amount of overt violence by both the police and Cohen’s crew is uninteresting. Maybe the taking back of LA from Cohen went just as the film suggested, but it is not worth making a film about.

Penn is good at times and overdone at other times as Cohen. This is not his crowning role or film. Nolte is a waste and fully uninteresting as Parker. He didn’t bring anything of value to the role. Gosling is good, has some wonderful touching moments as only he can. Stone is OK as Cohen’s girlfriend but there lacked a depth of history as to how she became his girlfriend in the first place that made the whole thing unrealistic. Will Beall wrote a very mediocre script and Ruben Fleischer’s direction was at the same level.

Overall:  This film is not worth seeing and is forgettable within hours after watching it.

30 Minutes or Less

First Hit:  A haphazard attempt at comedy and action ending up somewhat lifeless.

Jesse Eisenberg is Nick a lost intelligent young man who delivers pizza for a living. His roommate Chet (played by Aziz Ansari) is a school teacher. They’ve been friends for a long time and the sense is that they are together because they tolerate each other when nobody else can.

Nick is captured by Dwayne (played by Danny McBride) and Travis (played by Nick Swardson) on one of his pizza delivery runs. They tell him that he will rob a bank for them because they've strapped a bomb to him and if he doesn't do this they will detonate the bomb.

Dwayne wants the money so that he can hire Chango (played by Michael Pena) to kill Dwayne’s father “The Major” (played by Fred Ward). Sound a little dumb? It is, and outside of Pena, the scenes and much of the acting in this film is atrocious.

There are some funny lines in this film but for the most part, this film is lost from the get go and stays lost all the way until the end. An example of its stupidity, given Travis' character, where would he get the inkling, intelligence, and know how to build a sophisticated vest bomb which is Nick’s motivation to rob a bank?

Eisenberg is a wonderful actor when in a role that is of intelligence. He was miscast here. Ansari’s first tool of comedy is to be loud and sarcastic. It is more annoying than anything else and there wasn’t anything on the screen that told me that he and Eisenberg had any real friendship chemistry. McBride was painful to watch. It is difficult to act that stupid (as the character called for) and he wasn’t up to it. Swardson was better as he seemed to understand and act his role as both the conscious and supporting friend to McBride. Pena was the only actor that I felt was believable in this unbelievable movie. Dilshad Vadsaria as Kate (Nick’s girlfriend and Chet’s sister) was fine to look at but there is no way that she and Eisenberg made a believable couple. Michael Diliberti wrote this poorly conceived screenplay and Director Ruben Fleischer didn’t help things as all.

Overall: Outside of some funny lines and scenes, this film had no guts or intelligence. It isn’t even worth an “On Demand” look.

Zombieland

First Hit: It is a fun horror film and I enjoyed it a lot.

Woody Harrelson is perfect as Tallahassee the lone ranger and killer extraordinaire of zombies. Jesse Eisenberg is superb as Columbus the nerdish young man who, through his rule making,  finds himself skilled at being one of the few humans left in the USA.

As a team they are fun to watch as they traverse the USA in hopes of finding other humans or maybe sanctuary. Columbus has stayed alive by following certain rules like: “Always check the back seat.” “Never use public restrooms.”

These rules pop-up on the screen as the film moves along and add to the campy enjoyment of the film. Tallahassee is hell bent on killing zombies any way he can. He has found his calling and thoroughly enjoys the subtle enticement of a zombie towards him followed by a browbeating that is second to none (Zombie kill of the day, sort of stuff).

On their travels towards Ohio, they run across sisters Wichita (played by Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). These two girls are a tightly woven pair and dupe Tallahassee and Columbus twice by taking their car, guns and ammo. However, each time the men run across them again. It is the last time at Pacific Playland where they finally decide to hang out together and fully trust each other.

The film is filled with vomit, black vile, killing and stringy human flesh everywhere. This is a zombie film so expect it.

Once you get over those visuals as being too disgusting, it is a fun romp with a great reference to the film Deliverance and also a reference to either Dan White or Russell Crowe because of Tallahassee’s sole desire to score some Twinkies.

Harrelson is simply perfect in this part. This underrated actor always makes me believe he is the character he is playing. One may not like his choices, but he is not afraid to show you he is not the aw-shucks guy he was on Cheers. Here, he is simply a down home boy who doesn't think too far into the future, isn’t afraid to be kind, but is prone to use a gun to settle an argument or to gain a Twinkie. In zombie killing he has found his calling. Eisenberg wonderfully fits his character as an antisocial nerd who spends most of his time in front of his computer playing games. He is lonely, wants a girlfriend, and wakes up one day to find a zombie in his apartment. He decides it is time to get outside more only to find he may be the only human left, at least in LA. Stone and Breslin are great as sisters plotting to keep themselves alive and protected. Their first allegiance is to themselves. Lastly, Bill Murray shows up as himself, living life the best he can in a zombified world and his get-up is perfect Bill Murray stuff. Ruben Fleischer perfectly paces this film and his direction is spot on throughout, job well done.

Overall: This was fun film and crisply executed. It is a no frills event and will find its place in the hallowed archives of fun horror films like the 1964 film "Zombies", the 1968 film "Night of the Living Dead", Mel Brooks "Young Frankenstein" and "Love at First Bite" because it sets a mark right between them all.