Zombieland "Fleshes Out" That Left For Dead Experience

Left for Dead is a "family" experience. Weather I play with friends or a random group of strangers I know if I am going to succeed I will have to rely on the help of my teammates. This holds true from start to finish and is the first hard and fast rule to survive the cacophony of dangers that lie through out a campaign. Zombieland is a tart and sweet love letter to any game that celebrates these team based design mechanics. As Zombieland opens we are settled into the shoes of a lone Warcraft playing college student as he experiences the advent of the apocalypse. The first few minutes play out like an open-ended tutorial of sorts flicking buzzwords that punctuate the narrative providing both levity and pop culture credibility. It is this introduction that places our every-geek hero Columbus (Jesse Eisenburg) on the path to learn and as any first time Left for Dead player will attest to: he will probably not get by without help from his friends.

The first time Woody Harrelson uttered the words: "Nut up or shut up" I was prepared to endure another hour of dumb heterosexist pandering by diction of many a shock jock action title. The subsequent minutes of Zombieland had me surprised. With a well-written script and a superb cast Zombieland pulls you along a veritable undead country safari as the cast of seeming near-do-wells attempt to find their own ways in a world without custom. Columbus' rules do a great job of bridging the gruesome action with comedy. His survival tactics quantify his actions to the audience while tying the story and characters together. It is this "Tao" of Columbus and his innate humanity that eventually (and after several very funny misunderstandings) pull this cast together for some zombie shooting mayhem.

This film is gory. At times my laughter was swiftly tucked into submission by the sheer amount of blood and zombie repugnance. A supermarket filled with boomer doppelgangers gets shot up and euthanized with the superlative gunplay of Tallahassee leaving the floor looming with blood and bile. A terrorized Asian woman in Times Square shoots a possibly infected person with a magnum only to have her legs graphically devoured by a hoard of squirrelly zombies. Even the seemingly tacked on "guest cameo" finds place for a little grossness in a completely ridiculous but completely awesome side story that reveals perhaps more than I needed to know. The massively bloody body count only rises as the movie forms a thick head of frothy zombie flesh in the carnival ending, a very obvious nod to the upcoming Left for Dead 2's Dark Carnival campaign.

Zombieland's touching story and fantastic cast make for solid movie going fare for you and your Xbox Live crew or that special someone who doesn't mind holding your remote. This trip to the theatre reminded me that when I play online with friends, we are all in this together. Even so, the next time your playing Left for Dead you may not feel the need to tell GLoRIOuSDEAtHANGeL12 that you love him but perhaps give him that pipe bomb you've been saving because for the next hour or so he's "family".