Zombieland: Double Tap Same Bang for the Buck

The sequel to Zombieland has been met with mixed reviews but as far as I’m concerned Zombieland: Double Tap is slightly better than the original. Maybe I’ve seen the first one enough times now (and it’s been a decade since its release) that those jokes have worn thin and so the sequel mixed with both recycled jokes and fresh jokes strikes me as funnier, but more importantly for a zombie movie, the tension is much more palpable. Even when it was supposed to create tension and a dread that our heroes might find their demise in the original, there was always little doubt they would survive. The latter does a much better job of creating that doubt.

Once again scripted by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (who do a much better job with this script than their more recent fiasco 6 Underground), and again directed by Ruben Fleischer brings the major players from the first film (Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg and Abigail Breslin) together again for another joyous road trip down memory lane and roads less traveled. Turning the meta-cinema of the first one up to eleven, Tallahassee (Harrelson), Wichita (Stone) Columbus (Eisenberg) and Little Rock (Breslin) have now been together for ten years and while they’ve become a tighter and better equipped force against the Z’s, the zombies are evolving too.

Of course, as zombie films often do, the Z’s themselves are really just apocalyptic scenery in which our heroes live. This time out we are introduced to new characters, beginning with the outrageously annoying yet all together adorable Madison delightfully played by Zoey Deutch (Vampire Academy and Everybody Wants Some). While the original gang of four are meaner, if not so leaner warriors in this zombieland, emotionally they still struggle with their cobbled together family politics, and of course love. Columbus is still too needy and wants to marry Wichita, but she’s still too cautious about surrendering to love.

Little Rock on-the-other-hand, has become a full grown women still being treated like the little girl she was all those ten long years ago. Tallahassee has become a typical overbearing father figure who refuses to recognize she is now a woman and more importantly a woman who has desires few fathers want to deal with. Because of this, Wichita and Little Rock fly the coop and hit the road. Columbus is crushed, Tallahassee bored with the whining and just in the nick of time, Columbus meets Madison.

Madison in the wrong hands would just be an over-the-top airhead cheerleader mall-rat, but in the hands of Zoey Deutch, Madison is always engaging and knows how to take unlikable features of a character and while honoring that make her lovable. For Columbus she is a healing antidote for his broken heart, but no sooner do they act upon their attraction for each other than Wichita comes back home. Oh, by the way, they’ve been staying in the White House.

This new tension added to the Columbus/Wichita dynamic is a nice touch and with the help of the ever reliable Emma Stone, wickedly fun. Wichita has come home to inform the boys that Little Rock, after meeting a wannabe hippy musician (Berkely played by Avan Jogia) stealing the “beast” monster SUV they both stole from Tallahassee and leaving Wichita behind. The three of them and the addition of Madison for this gang of four hit the road, and to Tallahassee’s horror in a minivan, to find Little Rock. Destination; Graceland.

It is near Graceland, at the roadside motel that has become the new Graceland, where they meet Nevada (Rosario Dawson) who finally gives Tallahassee an opportunity to grapple with sexual tension himself. Soon after we’re introduced to Columbus and Tallahassee’s doppelgangers in Albuquerque and Flagstaff (Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch). The addition of these two might’ve been gratuitous for only a mildly funny take, but Reese and Wernick smartly use this wink to foreshadow impending doom for our heroes.

This is where the sequel does a better job of creating a palpable tension between survivors and zombies that are all smack dab in the middle of a comedy. By the time our heroes arrived at Graceland they’d already lost Madison to a seeming zombie bite and then there is the loss of the valiant Albuquerque and Flagstaff and let’s not forget the zombies have evolved. Finding Little Rock leads to the apocalyptic finale where it is very easy to believe that this time our heroes just might not survive. That tension only makes the joyride leading to it all the more fun, and the inevitable resolution much more enjoyable.