'Zombieland' Brings Stars Together for Hit Fall Movie

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Give it a try, just for fun. Well that's nice, but you're wrong. The answer, as evidenced by Ruben Fleischer's "Zombieland," is Woody Harrelson and a twinkie.,Here's a mind bender for you: you're trapped on a desert island inhabited by zombies and you can only bring two things with you. What are they?

Give it a try, just for fun. Well that's nice, but you're wrong. The answer, as evidenced by Ruben Fleischer's "Zombieland," is Woody Harrelson and a twinkie.

This newfound knowledge is only the tip of the iceberg, as "Zombieland" is laced with quaint tips on how to go about surviving the zombie apocalypse. The main compiler of these handy factoids is our first protagonist, played by Jesse Eisenberg.

These little tidbits of information establish the centerpiece for his character early on; he plays through situations by the book, and has decided that by following these rules he can survive. He lived his life as a loner, and when he was introducing himself in the movie, he attributes his survival to keeping to himself, not having friends at school and not being close to his family.

The first few minutes of the movie seem to be trying to make up for its overall shortness, as they were crammed with character establishing traits in order to set up the film.

After he survives a few scrapes by himself, he meets Woody Harrelson's character. After nearly killing each other, they agree to share a ride together and introductions are made.

Kind of. Because of the short lifespan of people at the time, they felt it would be better to get as barely attached to each other as possible, so Eisenberg decided to call himself "Columbus" after his hometown and Harrelson took on "Tallahassee" for the same reason.

Tallahassee, it was revealed, had an almost insatiable urge to end zombies. He took to the job like it was his calling, and spent his days searching for the one craving he needed to fulfill. "Twinkies have an expiration date, you know," he said while tearing through the zombie littered wreckage of a grocery store.

Like a pregnant woman on crack, Tallahassee focused on that Twinkie Quest like it was the last vestige of happiness on earth, and for him I guess it was.

After the odd pairing takes off on their merry way, they end up coming across two sisters who are in need of help.

Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) are the seeming damsels in distress of old stories, but when Tallahassee and Columbus come to their rescue it turns out things aren't quite the way they seem.

After the girls con the two guys out of their vehicle and weaponry, things seem to be going downhill in a big hurry.

Tallahassee is nearly brought to tears, though, when he luckily comes across a convenient Hummer H2 filled with guns and ammunition.

Soon on the road again, they see their car broken down and pulled over with the word "help" written on a sheet, but the girls are nowhere to be found.

Suspecting foul play, Tallahassee goes out while Columbus stays with the truck. After he finds nothing, he goes back to the truck to find Columbus taken hostage by Little Rock and Wichita coming down with a gun aimed at them.

Columbus manages to convince everyone to stick together, though, and that they would be more likely to survive if they stopped robbing and threatening one another with violence.

Soon enough, things calm down and they decide to head to Pacific Playland, an amusement park that is supposedly zombie free.

They stop along the way for a quick stay at Bill Murray's mansion in Hollywood. Soon enough, they see a zombie like Murray shuffling towards them, looking like death itself and moaning.

Before anyone can pull a weapon, though, Bill Murray shows that he is in fact human, and mentions that he just likes to dress up like a zombie when he wants to blend in and get in nine holes of golf. In an extremely short but hilarious cameo, Bill Murray cracks jokes and makes the audience feel at ease.

Soon enough, though, he decides to play a joke on Columbus and Little Rock, who are watching Ghostbusters in another room and have not seen the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man whooping living legend himself.

In an expected but still shocking scene, Bill Murray acts like a zombie and scares Columbus and Little Rock to the point where Columbus whipped out his rifle and shot Bill Murray.

In one of the most tragic but fantastic death scenes of any generation, we witness firsthand the passing of Bill Murray to friendly fire during the zombie invasion. And to think, all he really wanted to do was golf.

While the movie had more than its fair share of comedy and decent zombie moments, it is clear that the characters were well thought out.

For one thing, we are led to believe that Tallahassee, Harrelson's character, is stricken emotionally because he lost his dog. We find out through the introspection of Columbus, that in actuality Tallahassee lost his son and he has been completely broken by it.

The character development extends past moments like that. The fact that nobody expected to live very long created a situation in which they did not give each other real names struck me as interesting.

Most regular zombie movies focus more on the action and the behind the scenes character interaction; "Zombieland" kicks it up a notch with actual character development and more focus on smaller side points.

"Zombieland" takes the zombie-horror-comedy feel established by "Shaun of the Dead" and kicks it up a notch, incorporating dry humor with interesting characters and a dash of classic run and gun zombie movie moments. All in all, I give this movie an 8.5/10 and would definitely advise seeing it.

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