Zombieland and Surrogates April 25th, 2010
Originally Written 10/02/09
I got to unwind with a movie tonight. Zombieland pretty much kicked all kinds of ass, and it exactly lived up to my expectations from the trailer. It slowed down a little in the middle, but it was a fun ride and very clever and hella funny.
The intro and opening credits were a blast, including a zombie montage set to Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” which set the stage for the film well. And the last act was a set piece with fighting off a zombie horde at an amusement park at night, score!
I was trying to figure out what park it was. It was set in the LA area and there were calling it Pacific Playland, so at first I thought it might be Six Flags Magic Mountain, but you didn’t see any mountains in the background. I didn’t see it listed in the credits, but they did say the film was shot on location in Georgia.
Also, I saw Surrogates last week which was really underwhelming. Once again Rotten Tomatoes (40%) was right. I was hoping for a fun action film which had some interesting thoughts behind it, but it was neither.
It asked some questions how robotic avatars would change the world, but the scenario wasn’t believable and they never managed to sell the idea as plausible, plus some of the technology was just plain goofy. And it was a pretty tepid action film, barely a thriller that turned out to be an uninspired and boring murder mystery. Even Bruce Willis couldn’t liven it up.