Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) Review

“Sally Tally!”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED

Zombieland was too good of a movie to be a singular experience, which is why it was a good idea to come back and play the hits with a sequel.


PLOT


2019’s Double Tap takes place a decade after the events of the first film. Colombus, Tallahassee, Little Rock & Witchita/Krista have seen the zombie outbreak evolve to the point where there a
multiple variations of the undead: the silent and deadly Ninjas, partially intelligent Hawkings and the slow Homers. When the group reaches the White House, Colombus awkwardly proposes to Witchita with the Hope Diamond ring, which causes her to leave with her sister the next day. Back to just the boys for a whole month, he and Tallahassee would explore a mall and find a dumb blonde named Madison who has been hiding in a Pinkberry store the whole time. When Columbus brings her back to the White House, they quickly have sex. Witchita would return jealous but explains she needs help getting back Little Rock, who ditched her for a pacifist her age, Berkeley. According to her, they were heading to Greenland and the guys agree to help find her. Madison tags along as they get going, they encounter stronger zombies that they dub T800s, due to the need to completely destroy the brain. When they move forward, Madison seemingly starts turning into a zombie. This forces Columbus to shoot at her above the head to scare her off, convincing the others that he shot her. Upon reaching Graceland, the mansion is found destroyed but the group finds an Elvis Presley themed hotel nearby and they meet a lady named Nevada who lives there. She admits Little Rock and Berkeley passed through and the latter bragged about a hippie commune they were heading called ‘Babylon’. As they stay the night and Tallahassee particularly sleeps with her, they meet Albuquerque & Flagstaff, who share history with her. They return to avoid the new horde of T800s, or as they call ‘Bolts’ for their speed. They don’t process that they share similar personalities to Tallahassee & Colombus as they quickly get bit by T800s that followed them, forcing the protagonists to kill them. As they continue moving on, Madison catches up and reveals she had a nut allergy that resulted in her getting sick. They reach Babylon together and must surrender their firearms to enter, which get helped by the community. Tallahassee quickly considers leaving once he knows Little Rock, but he turns back around when seeing Babylon’s fireworks alerted a horde of T800s. With no guns, they compromise by making the biodiesel explode, have everyone arm themselves with barricade shields and corral the horde off of a nearby skyscraper where Tallahassee will be bait. When the biodiesel doesn’t work, the commune gets overwhelmed until Nevada arrives with Albuquerque’s truck. She runs over so many of them that she eventually rolls over, forcing them to go up the skyscraper. Tallahassee would use a crane hook to dangle out of reach for the zombies to fall to their deaths. One zombie is able to get a hold onto Tallahassee until it gets shot down by Little Rock who kept a gun she gave him (the Colt .45 that Richard Nixon famously gifted Elvis Presley). As she reconciles with him, Krista accepts Colombus’ marriage proposal and Madison would start dating Berkeley instead, as do Nevada and Tallahassee. As Nevada joins the quartet in leaving Babylon, the film ends in a mid credit flashback revealing Bill Murray was promoting ‘Garfield 3: Flabby Tabby’ when the outbreak began.


THOUGHTS


I was so down for a sequel to Zombieland to happen because it’s part of the reason I enjoy zombie movies to this day. The only thing that mattered for me to be onboard was that everyone was coming back with the cast. Director Ruben Fleischer returns to direct a fantastic script written by Paul Wernick & Rhett Reese with the addition of David Callaham. Tony Gardner back to lead impressive zombie effects was a must because it was the best way to make these creatures interesting and it worked again. The visual effects were a good blend as well with moments like the use of the monster truck annihilating the T800s. The production sure felt immersive seeing the Hound Dog hotel and Babylon because it embraced how otherworldly an apocalypse can be depending where one can interpret it. The second this movie opens with ‘Master of Puppets’ and the action starts in slow motion, you know we’re getting into familiar territory that you miss. The comedy is still pretty clever on its own because before that Bill Murray cameo in the end of it, you’re already laughing from the start. Most of the laughs actually went to the new characters. Like I actually give a good amount of credit to Luke Wilson & Thomas Middleditch making Albuquerque & Flagstaff such ideal bizarro versions to the male leads that they’re so great at mimicking them when onscreen. In fact, the cinematography Chung-hook Chung even peaked when the dual fight scene occurred between both sides. The rest of the comedy that had me losing my breath has to go to Zoey Deutch & Avan Jogia nailing it in making their character stereotypes so hysterical to behold. Madison so ditzy she doesn’t even know what that means and she makes it too easy to be looked down on because she can’t read the room how fast she can annoy everyone. I mean she probably doesn't have a brain if she’s made it this far. Yet each delivery by Deutch is so well done that you can notice the cast crack in the blink of an eye. Ironically, Berkeley is her perfect match because his idea to be so woke that he’s actually shadowing the fact he’s a bigger idiot to the point of uselessness. If you’re cool with melting guns because you’d rather avoid the conflict than face it, you’re a fucking pussy. No amount of weed can save him when the going gets tough and someone should’ve told him that way before the outbreak otherwise he’d have a better chance with Little Rock. So he and Madison are undoubtedly made for each other due to said uselessness. Having said that, the other reason I was hooked with the rest of the story because it is the returning cast that get the message across of how you got to embrace life beyond survival. The second you accept people into your inner circle should not mean to stop changing things up. If you do that, that only pushes away those that care about you and puts you back to square one. This is the dilemma with the returning quartet who have to go through hell and back to remember how they love each other as the unconventional family they became. There’s no doubt that Wichita loves Colombus and is flattered of the proposal, but Emma Stone points out her big fear is making sure commitment works for them since it didn’t work out for her parents before the outbreak, thus being protective towards her sister. There’s no guarantee if she would come back had Little Rock not ditched her for Berkeley, but it would be certain she’d regret leaving once time would pass. She ultimately says yes because in the end, she knows he’ll always be the kindest soul she ever met as her polar opposite. Jesse Eisenberg perfects in being mostly high strung but he’s more courageousness in wanting to marry Krista because he was sure he was gonna spend the rest of his life with her. He was willing to move on so fast and jump ship with Madison for two reasons: It was refreshing for him to meet a lady that wasn’t on guard the whole time and knew waiting for her to come back wouldn’t benefit him at all. Thankfully, both pick up on lost time to accept they’re meant to be at this point. It was a given Woody Harrelson would return to the badass with a heart of gold that we gladly remember Tallahassee for, but this time he has to pick up that his charisma was gonna burn out on a kid who grew up around him and needed a break from it all. Abigail Breslin stands out in making Little Rock one who was feeling desperate to find normalcy and show her own form of maturity that she’d rather be with people too far from her own comfort zone to prove a point. When he saw she was indeed comfortable where she was, Tallahassee didn’t waste time arguing because he never intended in making her feel such by being more protective than her sister and you can’t blame him for feeling such since she was the closest thing he had at being a dad again. The fact she kept the gun he gifted her proved she still appreciated his parental love despite being annoyed. It even makes sense no one would check her bag because that’s how lazy the commune is. While he grew to respect her boundaries, it was also nice to see him find love again. Rosario Dawson was another fine addition to the cast because as Nevada, she’s got her own self sufficiency to the point where she never needed a group for so long. In my opinion, she chose to head towards Babylon where she conveniently helps them because it was her turn to change things up and Tallahassee was part of that since sharing common love for Elvis was enough for them to hook up. Sure, that may be the same reason she bothered with Albuquerque, but it’s clear she preferred the former more because he’s not so arrogant in comparison before the latter died. Off of that, I hope she is still around should there be another follow up from this adventure. This movie remains fun for what it is, but there are still some things that make me prefer the first one. Like with ten years passing by, how is there still electricity going on when there’s no proof of local dams getting restored? If you’re the saying the main characters did this on the way to the White House, that should’ve been worth narrating. The emptiness of the mall is even more unbelievable than the grocery store because after 10 years, it should’ve been a bigger mess as in more bodies than what is shown. And you know what, Wichita should’ve not been mad Colombus moved on so fast having met Madison because there was no guarantee she’d come back until Little Rock became that reason. Plus, Tallahassee shouldn’t be surprised Madison was gonna join them since they weren’t being discreet when leaving. Also, it is too big of a coincidence for anyone to know how Bill Murray died to the point that it becomes slang in Zombieland to ‘Murray’ somebody. Hell, the coincidence feels too forced of a callback with Nevada meeting the one person who did shoot Bill on accident. Seriously, the communicating network on this and zombie kill of the year needs to make more sense if you’re gonna mention it. And I know Tallahassee had a dislike for minivans because they’re not stylish for an apocalypse, but you’re totally wasting ammunition and transportation when dumping a grenade on it without confirming he was really gonna enter Babylon. Lastly, enjoying the little things is not a rule worth embracing when driving a car with the top down. That’s just making it easy for zombies to get a good grip of you. If you can still ignore these things though, then you still appreciate Zombieland: Double Tap for remaining a hella good time. If the first film became the reason you dig the zombie sub genre, I promise this sequel is worthwhile.