Review - Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)

Directed by: Ruben Fleischer
Written by: Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin
IMDb Link

Zombieland was one of the best pieces of Zombie fiction to come out of that glut of content the subgenre received in the late 2000s-early 2010s; the "Double Tap" became a meme, the actors all went on to have prestige careers. Before all that, though, the film was wickedly funny, and the running trope commentary felt like a breath of fresh air as the content began to pile up around the subgenre like dead bodies.

Unfortunately, it's been ten years; Zombie content has continued to shamble on, the commentary of the first has grown stale, and Zombieland: Double Tap seems content to spend its time remembering how good the first one was rather than doing anything to really move the story or the characters forward.

It's been 10 years in Zombieland as well, and now Tallahassee (Harrelson), Columbus (Eisenberg), Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin) have moved in to the White House. Comfort and close quarters has strained the family, and it's not long before Wichita and Little Rock hit the road again, only for Wichita to return when Little Rock takes off with a hippy poser (Avan Jogia). Meanwhile, Tallahassee and Columbus come across a dumb blonde stereotype named Madison (Zoey Deutch), whose only role in the story seems to be to play to the stereotype and sleep with Columbus to create some easy tension between Columbus and Wichita. The rest is a fairly fun road trip movie that includes a stop-off with Tallahassee's counterpart Nevada (Rosario Dawson) at an Elvis-themed hotel, and a few new types of zombie that only really fill in a couple of gags.

There's nothing here that's particularly bad, but none of it's particularly good either. The laughs aren't as consistent, the new characters aren't anywhere near as funny as the filmmakers seem to think they are, and the theme are basically the same as the first, but replace the word "family" with the word "home" as a roundabout way of getting the characters essentially back to where they started. As the same time, the film is incredibly comfy: references to the first are always welcome and even make for some of the better bits in the movie, and the jokes that aren't funny also aren't aggressively unfunny. The whole experience is very easy to lean back with and somewhat enjoy, and it's rarely less than that, but also never more than that.

The Short Version: Like warmed up leftovers of really nice meal: you know you've had this exact meal but better, and yet there's not much to complain about.

Rating: 6/10