Writer: Ezekiel Lee Zhiang Yang

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Watch this if you liked: “Where Got Ghost?”, “Zombie Strippers”, “Shaun Of The Dead”

Billed as the return to form for horror-comedy as a genre, director Ruben Fleischer finally hits it big with "Zombieland", a self-explanatory box office winner that combines the zombie action in "I Am Legend" and "28 Days Later" with the zombie humour in "Shaun Of The Dead" and "Zombie Strippers" to good effect, leaving us with a delicious aftertaste of the bloody and the bloody funny.

In an apocalyptic world of mad cow disease and its resultant zombies, Jesse Eisenberg plays an unassuming nerd dubbed Columbus (a cross between Paul Dano in "Little Miss Sunshine and Michael Cera in "Juno") who runs about town à la Will Smith in an abandoned New York, dodging zombies and trying to make his way to Ohio to see if his parents are still alive. He finds himself forming an uncomfortable alliance with All-American cowboy Tallahassee (a triumphantly effective Woody Harrelson, "Natural Born Killers") and two clever sisters (Emma Stone from "Superbad", "House Bunny" and the now-teenage Abigail Breslin from "Little Miss Sunshine", "My Sister's Keeper"). It's an adventure with baseball bats, Ferris wheels, fancy SUVs, heavy gunpower and even a chance meeting with comedy great Bill Murray to keep us on the go for 88 minutes.

Pacing is the key to "Zombieland" success in more ways than one. The movie is cleverly punctuated with cartoon maxims on how to avoid being killed by zombies, just as soon as they are administered on the hapless creatures. For example, Rule #1 is Cardio, meaning we have to be fit to stay ahead of the zombies; thus we are shown how unathletic fat people always get eaten first. That's the kind of cute humour on offer throughout the whole show.

While the comedy is not very often laugh-out-loud, the winsome cast members (especially Woody Harrelson in an inspired turn) have great chemistry together and easily make "Zombieland" a rewarding and entertaining watch.

Cinema Online, 11 November 2009