The first Zombieland was an average zombie movie. Fun without pretenses. Things that they got right:
- Rules of survival
- Bill Murray (Obviously)
- Silly banter about Twinkies
Thing that they got wrong:
- Suddenly making both female characters forget that making noise would attract zombies and risking their lives for no real reason other than offering the male character the opportunity to ignore his own rule about “not acting the hero” to “get the girl”. Something that has to be the oldest and most boring trope of all times.
And the worst thing is that this lazy archetypal ending didn’t get a twist. Just “rescue the girl and get laid”. Some people are so used to this trope that didn’t question the logic. Even if you follow the movie own internal logic, the ending should have been Tallahassee assaulting a Twinkie factorie even if it is illogical and suicidal and the others joining because “what the hell”. That way you wouldn’t need to force the female characters to “act stupid” in order to need rescue. In a zombie movie, if you are going to do that you should kill them all for not following survival rules.
Walking dead had a similar illogical thing with Lory washing clothes in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. I mean, they taught Carl to shoot while she keeps doing house chores. Apparently the idea that a grown woman fight instead of a little child was unthinkable or something…
As for social commentary in modern zombie genre I would recommend “In the flesh”. Good show with interesting twits. Although it is serious. Or maybe death set if you want funny (and gore).
