Zombieland

Directed by Ruben Fleischer

(R)

***

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A group of strangers survive a zombie apocalypse.

“If you see just one zombie comedy this year, make it Zombieland,” said Leah Rozen in People. In this “smart, snarky take on battling the undead,” Jesse Eisenberg—playing essentially the same endearing geek he did in Adventureland—has survived a plague that’s turned most of humanity into flesh-eating zombies. Searching for safety, he teams up with a gun-totin’, Twinkie-lovin’ vigilante (Woody Harrelson) and two sisters (Abigail Breslin and Emma Stone). As their adventures take them on a cross-country trek, the film starts to lose its way, said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. Despite its “sharp-witted script,” Zombie­land lacks any real ­dramatic shape and, at different­ points, resembles everything from a schlock-horror fest to a buddy movie. Still, the cast “sinks its teeth” into even the subpar material, and director Ruben Fleischer “sustains an impressively high level of silliness,” especially when he calls on Bill Murray for a cameo. He limits the film by playing up the hilarity rather than the horror of the genre, said Ty Burr in The Boston Globe. But fortunately the film “makes up in laughter what it lacks in screams,” and it’s those laughs that “bring Zombieland alive.”