Zombieland: Double-Tap (2019) Dir: Ruben Fleischer
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I recently rewatched one of my favourite zombie films in Ruben Fleischer's 2009 genre classic; Zombieland. As such, it felt only appropriate to rewatch the 2019 sequel too - another film I had fond memories of, although nowhere near as much as the original.
Fleischer did well to carry over the aesthetics and feel of the first film, while not allowing them to stagnate. Things started strongly with another fun opening montage, this time to the tune of Metallica's "Master Of Puppets", which was a great choice.
The kills were a fair amount weaker, but I still enjoyed them. Some of them were pretty absurd, in a good way, but others were rather lacklustre. At the very least, the physical and visual effects were all pretty decent, so there was no issue there. I will say, on that point, some of the CGI really could've been better, but it wasn't nefarious levels of bad.
The story was definitely a bit lacking. It was a film where it felt like a lot of the events surrounding the actual narrative were a bit filler, to create a full film's worth of story. However, all that filler was at least very entertaining, as was the main story, thankfully.
Jesse Eisenberg isn't quite as funny as before, however, I do think he still has plenty of miles left in the character. Sure, it's very much Eisenberg being that familiarly awkward Eisenberg, but, as I said in my review of the original, it really works for these films.
Woody Harrelson is such an easy actor to love, especially when he provides such entertaining and hilarious performances as he has done in these films. I do slightly prefer his previous performance, but honestly, this character comes so easily to him, and he does it so well, that I don't think it really matters.
Emma Stone had a couple of weaker scenes in the first half of the film, but once the story picked up, she really got into the groove. Her facial expressions are always top tier, and she definitely has her comedic timing down nicely. At times she was easily the funniest person on-screen.
Abigail Breslin was the only actor I didn't really enjoy all that much, of the original four protagonists, at least. It didn't help that she featured quite a bit less than she had done previous. However, I just think she lacked a bit of the wit that had made her so fun in the last film.
Zoey Deutch was a, perhaps necessary, breath of fresh air for the film, who I absolutely loved. She may have been playing a ditsy stereotype, but she does it so well that it's impossible not to enjoy her performance. She was genuinely so funny at times.
I also enjoyed some of the performances of the supporting cast, chiefly Rosario Dawson, who was very charismatic, but also the trio of Avan Jogia, Luke Wilson and Thomas Middlesitch, the latter two of which had very memorable scenes.
Overall, while this is definitely not as good as its predecessor, I still find this one a fun watch every time I revisit it. It still has plenty of the character that made the first film so enjoyable, but does attempt to do new things with new characters and new places. I could happily watch a third film with these characters, or even a spin-off with new ones, honestly.
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