Zombieland: Double Tap Parent Guide

Having holed up together in the White House, the protagonists of 2009’s Zombieland, Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock (played by Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin) begin to stew over their personal issues. Out in the field, fighting the undead, and living for survival, their priorities were different - but now, trapped in the Executive Mansion together, Wichita’s fear of commitment and Little Rock’s desire to meet people her own age start posing problems. When they run off, it’s up to Columbus and Tallahassee to figure out how to respond…

I was extremely nervous about this film. As with most things I found funny in high school, I had a sneaking suspicion that this would have aged about as well as a gallon of milk in the trunk of a car in August. I am, therefore, pleasantly surprised that the movie manages to be a mediocre dark comedy, rather than the four-alarm train wreck I had anticipated. Sure, most of the jokes are sophomoric and feel a little worn around the edges, but as long as you don’t think too hard, you can cruise right through the hour-and-a-half runtime without wishing you were being consumed by the undead just to get out of the theatre.

That’s mostly because, at its core, Zombieland is about the virtues of found family, and the importance of helping the people you care about. It is, admittedly, dressed up in a silly amount of blood, gore, guts, and guns, but somewhere in the middle of all that is a nice little heart. The cast is really the only reason the movie gets away with it: Woody Harrelson and Emma Stone have enough charm to power a small city for a year and the script still gives them some pathos to work with.

This isn’t a family film, but as zombie comedies go, it’s less raunchy than most. The jokes are mostly about creative uses of profanity and unique ways to re-murder the undead. And, best of all, for a Restricted movie, there is little by way of cringe-worthy sex jokes. There is, however, alcohol and drug consumption by main characters on more than one occasion. Given these content issues, I obviously can’t give a ringing endorsement for family viewing…but you can do a whole lot worse.

Considering I was dreading this movie all week, the fact that this review isn’t a bitter tirade is something of a miracle. I don’t think this is one of the better zombie comedies (especially considering that I’ve seen The Dead Don’t Die three times in theaters) but if you liked the first Zombieland movie, Zombieland:Double Tap is more of the same. Another day, another mountain of undead maniacs to dispatch with a dopey one liner. Same as it ever was.