Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)

Last week, we talked about waiting a while to do a sequel to a film(s) that are considered sacred to fans of the film and how it can be risky. In 2009, zombie films were pretty standard and we saw countless people try to reinvent the genre because it was getting sort of stagnate. Ruben Fleischer (Venom) decided that he would reinvent the zombie genre by steering it more into the comedy realm with his mega blockbuster Zombieland and the film introduced us to the fab four Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). Ten years later and the gang is back for Zombieland: Double Tap which sees Fleischer back behind the helm. This time around, the gang has been surviving in the White House, but Little Rock is a little bit older now and she wants to find someone for herself so she takes off. The gang has no choice, but to chase her down, but a new threat of zombies has arisen and are deadlier than ever. The film also stars Zoey Deutch (Everybody Wants Some!) as Madison, Avan Jogia (Shaft) as Berkeley, Rosario Dawson (Kids) as Nevada, Luke Wilson (Old School) as Albuquerque, and Thomas Middleditch (Godzilla: King Of The Monsters) as Flagstaff. 

As I said before, it is such a huge risk to take a beloved first film and give it a sequel ten years later especially when fans had been asking for it before. One thing I will say is that I don' think the wait hurt at all because this was actually a really good film. I definitely do not think that it is better than the original, but it had me laughing at a bunch of different moments especially with the scene stealing Zoey Deutch who plays the brainless Madison. The interactions that she has with Woody and Emma are just absolute gold and I could not stop laughing which is the best sign that someone enjoys the film. I definitely liked the fact that they evolved the zombies as well because it only makes sense that they would learn to different things and adapt since it has been ten years since this whole mess started. The introduction of the T-800 zombies, the Hawkings, and the ninja zombie were great and I loved the fact that they would include the zombie kill of the year in the film cause some of those were great. The other great thing was the inevitable which was introducing an alternate universe Tallahassee and Columbus which was Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch. That just made for great screen time and I definitely enjoyed it. The whole adventure is awesome and the pay off at the end is amazing and to be honest I wouldn't mind a third film or even a TV series. They could do so much with a television series, but we'll save that for another discussion. Like I said before the first film is the best one, but this one does it's job and does it well. That is why I am going to give the film an A- for a final grade.