Zombieland: Double Tap | Film Review

It has been ten long years since our Zombieland quartet of Tallahassee, Columbus, Wichita, and Little Rock formed their little dysfunctional family bonding, rife with undead ass-kickery and witty asides stuffed with rules to survive the apocalypse. In our modern era, overrun with remakes and sequels no one asked for, Double Tap returns to deliver another dose of a world fans had actually been clamoring for. But is ten years too late?

We’re quickly brought up-to-speed with where our characters have been this past decade, and the answer is mostly wandering around the country waging a quiet war on the latest evolution of zombie types. They finally settle down and find a home in the White House, which is where our story begins (and for some reason, they have spent 10 years never discussing or exchanging their actual names). After Columbus awkwardly proposes to the commitment-phobic Wichita, she and her sister Little Rock take off in the night, leaving the boys to suffer abandonment issues in their wake. Columbus is obviously emotionally wrought, while Tallahassee suffers internally as he wrestles with his paternal instincts over the loss of Little Rock.

All hell breaks loose though when Wichita returns after Little Rock abandons her for a hippie songwriter they met on the road. The team pick up new blood in Madison (Zoey Deutch), a bubbly nimrod whose brief dalliance with Columbus creates several magical exchanges with the rest of the troop as they take off to save Little Rock from hippie damnation.

Director Ruben Fleischer has managed to gather the entire team from the original: Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick join up with Dave Callaham for the script, cleverly nodding to the past while driving us plot-wise into the future; meanwhile original stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, and Oscar winner Emma Stone reassemble to tempt fate with their return to sacred land. It’s especially rewarding having Stone back in such a goofily bonkers universe after several years of her more “esteemed” fare.

Though Harrelson has a few moments where he veers a bit too close to over-the-top, this cast firmly establishes a comfortableness that feels a bit like a family reunion. The warmth, banter, and badass cohesion gel together and permeate into a finely aged wine. Furthermore, their familiarity in battle and skill with assassinating zombies of any type as a cohesive unit is both exhilarating and natural. The humor and setup are essentially the same (characters gather, spout off numerous rules of survival, set off on a road trip quest, cue the final battle), but it all goes down just as smooth as the original. In terms of the OGs, no one misses a beat.

Cranking things up a level, as she blatantly refuses to neither nut up nor shut up, is Zoey Deutch’s Madison. When we first meet Madison, every audience member is going to shriek with terror. Not because she’s frightful, but because she’s as vapid and gratingly chatty as a person can be, a sure sign that a character will wear out their welcome in seconds. But Deutch manages to pull an elite feat, one comparable to Reese Witherspoon’s Elle Woods…she endears Madison to all of us. I don’t know how difficult it is to cultivate a character that is as hysterically enchanting as she is insufferable, but Deutch kicks this movie up three notches every single time she bobbles her head into frame.

As we race towards the action-packed “Zombie Kill of the Year” potential of the finale, several notable actors drop by for clever cameos or supporting roles, and by the end it’s obvious that Fleischer and friends took this return seriously. Zombieland leaves us with a reminder that sometimes the best times spent with family are when you give yourself enough time between visits to realize how impactful their absence has been. It might be ten years after our first trip, but Zombieland: Double Tap will have you shitting smiles for 90 minutes straight.