Warning: Spoilers ahead.
I was really looking forward to Zombieland Double Tap. I love Woody Harrelson, Bill Murray the rest of the first Zombieland cast. I was excited to see just what they would come up to continue the characters' adventures and expecting to laugh a lot.
And when the second installment was over, there were some funny jokes and it was entertaining in a lot of ways. However, it wasn't what I was hoping for, and it disappointed in a lot of ways.
The idea of having the characters visit the White House was fun and mildly funny, but even that seemed forced and as if they couldn't come up with anything for the character to do, so let's make them visit the White House. The jokes were obvious and not that funny, like cutting out a piece of painting and using the Hope Diamond. What were they doing there? Why were they simply wandering around with no goal in mind? It seemed very random and boring.
Columbus and Wichita are hooked up, which took away any mystery of their romance. Why couldn't they still be flirting and Columbus trying to win her over? That would have been much more interesting.
Little Rock is no longer a little girl, and she seems uninteresting and characterless. She really has nothing to do, so they have her looking for someone to love, which is really not that interesting. In fact, no one seems to have anything really to do. In the first movie, every scene added a new idea or dimension. The new movie seems like simply a rehash of a lot of the jokes in the first one, including the "Rules".
Columbus is no longer the scared, neurotic person he was, and so his character has lost a lot of interest as well. Even Tallahassee seems tame, and no longer the edgy, dangerous character he was.
Enter the guitar playing beatnik, Berkley. His character is very stereotypical and not that interesting. He doesn't seem at all the type of person Little Rock would really be interested in, at least the Little Rock in the first movie. But I suppose you could say she felt lucky just to find somebody to love, and yet later, there seemed to be hundreds of people still alive. At the beginning of the first movie we were given the impression that there were very few people left, and yet now, there are tons of people. This also detracts from the entertainment value.
The joke of the doppelgangers of Wichita and Tallahassee was, in my opinion, lame. It did not lend itself to the plot, but then there really was no plot, so I guess it didn't really matter. The "Commandments" versus "Rules" was a groaner, and really boring to watch.
The car joke, driving the minivan, was funny for the first two seconds, then it grew really lame. All the jokes in this movie were all only mildly funny.
In the first movie, there was the anticipation and fear for Wichita and Little Rock, but this time, there really was no danger that anyone would be hurt, and so it the ending was a snoozer. The idea of Babylon, where they had to burn all their weapons and become beatniks was depressing. Now, are they simply going to spend the rest of their future drinking beet juice and playing drums? What a lame ending!
This movie was like Walking Dead going from their exciting first season right to their boring eighth season in one quick leap. The idea of different types of zombies was not that interesting and wasn't developed into anything. The zombies, just like in the lastest seasons of Walking Dead, are inconsequential and not threatening.
The most interesting and entertaining scene in the whole movie came during the credits with Bill Murray. I would have liked to see more of that, than the rest of the movie.
In conclusion, this movie had really no point. The characters had really nothing to do through most of it and ended up in a lame commune. There was no real humor, I felt like the creators said to themselves,' We want to make another movie, so let's think up something for them to do".
What would I have done differently? I could think, personally as a screenwriter, of all kinds of much better plots. They could have decided to take a trip across America and met with all kinds of funny adventures in famous places. They could have gone back to Hollywood and met lots more celebrities. They could have gone on a search for a zombie cure because one of their members was bitten. I could go on and on. Hollywood, next time you need a new plot for a movie, I'm right here, call me!
My final score was a C-. It was mildly entertaining but could have been much, much more.
Thanks for reading.
Write On!
Mark Robyn
www.markrobyn.com
Read my books on Amazon:
Johnny Apocalypse and the Nuclear Wasteland
Dead by Midnight
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