Zombieland: Double Tap

With this bunch (including the pink blonde), you wouldn’t be bored even if they just stood around talking at a bus stop. Even so, the screenwriters of the second Zombieland didn’t exactly overwork themselves. The film is a road movie with three stops where something happens just for a moment of amusement, not for moving some elaborate story forward, much less for enriching genre conventions. Even the imaginative pacifist smelting of weapons in Babylon was spoiled by the silly solution of the final problem with the zombie army. It’s okay for watching once, though. (11/26/2019)

In terms of content, this a clearly bad film. Its schematic, weak and sloppy story about the journey of the characters from point A to point B serves only as a necessary link for a series of comedy sketches and action scenes with zombies, all with fluctuating levels of quality. The film of course copies the first Zombieland, but this time it's all much simpler, more straightforward, more predictable and, overall, somewhat worse in all respects. Moreover, after ten years, the main characters have degraded to annoying one-dimensional caricatures. The film is fully aware that they are unbearable, but rather than doing anything about it, it uses these aspects as a source of humour (and builds a panopticon around them of deliberately annoying and exaggerated, demented side characters consisting of personalized stereotypes, so that the main characters appear more sympathetic to the audience). The film is partly saved by a fairly entertaining level of comedy, and in places by the actors, who obviously enjoyed filming it, which the audience can see. Only every third to fourth joke works, but with the huge cadence of gags, it doesn't matter much. (10/23/2019)

(SPOILER ALERT!) Zombieland offers a very decent intro, you cannot help laughing when you see the film's logo, then slowly but surely it leads to the badass finale, which ends with an incredibly funny tribute to the "unnamed ghostbuster". The second film may have some weaker spots, with too much talking, lecturing, shouting or spitting, but all of that is amply made up for by the large number of action and climactic scenes. The award for funniest character goes to the endearingly goofy "blonde from the freezer", and I was also very amused by the "doppelganger" sequence. In the end, it's a weaker four stars, but I can't say I was bored in the cinema, and that's the most important thing in a comedy. (10/29/2019)

This movie plays it safe and other than the characters being older, don't expect much variation. In a way it's a sympathetic approach, but it would have been even more sympathetic to me if I hadn't found the last film to be an altogether entertaining but also contradictory spectacle that I just couldn't miss. The second Zombieland is better perhaps only in that the vast majority of the most rewarding humor this time rests on the shoulders of Woody Harrelson, who is simply brilliant, and newcomer Zoey Deutch, who wraps everyone around her finger with her endearing portrayal of a less than bright girl. It's the other characters' clashes with her way of "thinking" that entertained me the most (along with the final credits). Not the mashing of the undead with combines and the tired,obligatory finale, nor the hackneyed romance with its predictable conclusion, and certainly not the whole part with Luke Wilson, which was a few completely tone-deaf minutes and a bore to watch. (10/25/2019)

The four heroes are back, still killing man-eating monsters and still trying not to kill each other. But now one of the girls has disappeared and the rest must find her and possibly save her. And as they make their way across zombie-infested America, they encounter not only the undead, but also other survivors, Elvis and hippies. The sequel to Zombieland could be considered a carbon copy of the first one, as it doesn't bring much new stuff, but it's still just as fun and if you enjoyed the disposal of the undead and the antics of the survivors last time, the second one won't disappoint. (12/26/2019)