Zombieland is exactly what you would expect from its title and marketing, it’s a movie, about a land full of zombies, there’s no time for back-story, explanation, or exhibition about how, why, where, or what turned almost everyone into mindless, feasting machines, instead we (as an audience) are simply introduced to the post-apocalypse and to a few survivors who are each searching for something, and trying to stay alive.

The majority of the story focuses on Jesse Eisenberg’s Columbus (everyone is named after a city to keep from developing emotional attachments with real names) who is trying to get back to his namesake hometown and see if his parents are still alive. After Jesse introduces us to his “Rules” for staying alive in a zombie infested land, he eventually meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and the two of them eventually happen upon Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and a tenuous alliance is formed.

There are stories of an amusement park where zombies don’t roam free, the girls are trying to find it in Los Angeles and reclaim some of young Little Rock’s youth while Tallahassee is running from his former life and Columbus listlessly wonders after being left with nothing.

The film is lean, mean, and incredibly well written and well acted. Harrelson in particular looks like he’s having the time of his life working on this picture as a redneck with a penchant to crack wise, kill everything in his way, and paint the number “3” on every care he’s able to steal. Eisenberg also excels playing a Michael-Cera-lite role of the fumbling everyman who eventually gets the girl and turns out to be more than he thought he could be.

First time feature film director Ruben Fleischer busts onto the scene with a love for beautifully crafted action sequences and slow motion cuts. His opening credit sequence is amazingly well done and immediately gets you in the mindset for this film.

The most surprising thing, like Shaun of the Dead before it, is that the combination of guts, gore, and guffaw is perfectly presented, easy to follow, and, most importantly, perfectly executed. Hearty belly-laughs are interplayed with sight gags and even a little bit of emotion as the four survivors grow closer.

Zombieland may very well be one of the best films of the year and easily one of the funniest, everyone owes it to themselves to partake in the experience and remember to keep up on the cardio an avoid the theater’s restroom.

I Am Legend is a movie that seemingly everyone and their mom wants to see. This is evident by the couple hundred people lined up outside the theater, in the cold and rain for the free screening I attended, hoping to get a precious seat inside. Typically, these types of come one, come all movie fests, based mostly on commercial hype, usually end up being enjoyable (i.e. Transformers). They typically don’t end up like the “I should know from the trailer this is going to be boring and artsy” films (i.e. No Country for Old Men).

The story of what exactly happened to humanity is told in flashbacks, and various paper and magazine articles in the background. This made for a fun exercise of trying to read everything (note: look for a billboard for a certain superhero movie in “development hell” in time square). Different people may get more or less of the back story this way, although some might find it frustrating, because everything isn’t explained up front. There is somewhat of a left turn at the end that shows up at Neville’s lowest point, that some might consider a cheesy plot turn that includes the line “I like Shrek.” That is up to the viewer though. The ending is very heroic, without saying too much, following the trend of horror movies lately.

For all the zombie movies released over the years, George A. Romero’s “Dead” series has always been held in high acclaim. Night of the Living Dead gave birth to this new genre, and horror staple, of the dead, returning to live seeking the living for sustenance. As grotesque as the subject matter is, it caught on and spawned dozens and dozens of sequels, rip-offs, and re-imaginings. To be fair, it’s hard to top the architect of anything. The stigma of sequels never living up to their predecessors has stuck around for a very long time, and only in the pas few years has that claim been seriously challenged with great films like Spider-Man 2, and Batman Begins. Romero did it twice after the original Night of the Living Dead with the masterpiece Dawn of the Dead and follow-up Day of the Dead.

When films like 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead bring new elements (zombies at full speed) and new genre-crossovers can the father of the zombie movie still shine in the world he helped create? Well, sort of.

Land of the Dead, the fourth film in the series, brings along everything we have come to expect from a Romero film. The gore factor is certainly there, especially still using old movie-making techniques and resisting the urge to go CGI-happy. Sure, CGI is a great complimentary element to be added into a film, but no one does gore like Romero and fake blood.

What is missing, however, is the character development which brought Dawn of the Dead to life in the late 1970’s. That film, which featured four survivors in a shopping mall, had plenty of time to introduce characters to us, show how they interact with each other, who-likes-who, who-doesn’t-like-who, and these were all elements of characterization that brought the film to life and separated it from the schlock. Land does an admirable job of showing us a variety of characters, but they’re all ones we’ve seen before. With characters like the leader looking to escape from his current job and move on, the opportunistic guy who’ll never be accepted, the streetwalker looking to do something more, and the maniacal ruler of the land. Add them together with some sloppy dialog and you have yourself a good zombie film, but one that doesn’t feel as complete or whole as Romero’s previous work.

The last surviving humans have taken refuge on a peninsula of sorts, bordered by water on two sides, and heavily fortified land on the other, these remnants of the human race feel safe. Overseen by the creepy Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), the rich live in an extravagant skyscraper with all the finest luxuries while the poor suffer on the streets turning tricks and calling for an uprising. Riley (Simon Baker from CBS’s The Guardian) sees his last night acquiring supplies turn deadly as a man takes his own life after being bitten by the zombies, how have taken over most of the country. Taking over the job of commanding Dead Reckoning, a massive tank-like vehicle built by Riley, is Cholo (John Leguizamo) who ends up stealing the vehicle and holding the city ransom. On the other end of the spectrum is the zombie element who are “led” by a service station attendant who appears to be able to communicate with the mindless drones shuffling about. He brings them to the fortified city in hopes of a fresh, warm meal.

While I’ll buy the stupid human tricks that still prevail even at times of adversity, I simply cannot fully grasp the change in the zombie nomenclature by having them communicate, learn to shoot guns, and coordinate a massive attack. We’ve seen the fast zombies of 28 Days Later, and while those in Land of the Dead remain at half-speed, the points mentioned above just don’t work for me. I remember almost wanting to laugh out loud at the grunts and such that would pass off as a zombie language. This, coupled with the happy, sunshine-time ending, rubbed me the wrong way. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as The Matrix Revolutions revolting ending, but it certainly didn’t feel as though a man content with killing off main character after main character in his movies had directed this one.

Overall I thought Land of the Dead was a well constructed zombie movie with almost none of the spark that made Romero famous. The nods to his earlier works are funny, and the script has a certain amount of humor to it but the changing of the zombie dynamics and the film’s ending leave it slightly above average when it had a chance to be truly great.

Those crazy Brits have got to be doing something right across the pond. After the success of 28 Days Later in their homeland the film stormed American cinemas and made my top 10 list last year, now another zombie film tried to make it big in the US, but can a romantic comedy with zombies really work? You bet your ass it can.

What Shaun of the Dead (taking its title as an homage to George Romero’s perennial Dawn of the Dead) does really well is be an entertaining film that successfully merges many genres of filmmaking into one, creating a hodgepodge of side-bursting comedy and horror and mixes it all together, with a few scoops of brains, and melds one of the best films of the year. Realistically, I haven’t had a better time at the movies in a very long time. Aside from the “groundbreaking” dramas and the “funniest movies of the year” comedies you rarely get to go to a film that is so enjoyable, you actually don’t want it to end, because you know the real world, with its “real” movies will be waiting just around the corner.

Shaun of the Dead centers around the title character, Shaun (Simon Pegg), and his everyday activities, which are leading him down the road of an eternal loser, and how his seemingly normal life is impacted by the zombie threat. One of the most clever portions of the film’s script is we never get a real cause for the arrival of the zombies. While characters are flipping through channels we get bits and pieces of how the virus might have first come in contact with humans, but a solid explanation is never given. Shaun is struggling to keep his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), interested, and after he recommends his favorite tavern for a romantic dinner things are through. Just as it seems as though things can’t get any worse it does, and the zombies arrive on the scene (although calling them that is bad luck). Shaun is totally oblivious to this fact until a close encounter puts him in the spotlight to save his friends, and escape the undead.

First and foremost think about what a melding of the comedy and horror genres would be like with a dry British wit and none of the Wayan’s brothers within 5000 miles, and this is what you would expect. The jokes are funny, the visual cues are funnier, and the dialog is the best. Shaun of the Dead has a smart, witty, fast script that doesn’t sit around with one joke too long and has life to make even the undead…well…pretty damn lively. Whereas Dawn of the Dead had the underscore of consumerism in our society, Shaun of the Dead follows the same trend in making the everyday, working man look like a mindless fiend bent on getting through the day alive only to plod through another. This joke is alluded to earlier in the film before it is blatantly summarized in the closing montage.

Towards the climax the comedy routine seems to taper off as the horror aspect clearly makes its mark. For a comedy you may not find a more gruesome 90 minutes as far as dismemberment and bloodshed, and no, sitting through Along Came Polly doesn’t count as gruesome, only retarded. For the squeamish there are a few instances they might want to avoid, including the vivid dismemberment of a human at the hands of a gang of zombies. Unlike the walking undead of 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake, these are your standard slow zombies, who are so transfixed on their next helping of brains that they are easy enough to get by in small numbers.

Shaun of the Dead has sleeper hit written all over it, and it would be one if it didn’t shatter the British box office earlier this year. The film is ripe with social commentary, gore, violence, language, and a bit of a relationship troubles for the ladies out there. While the plot itself isn’t anything particularly new, the execution and writing make the film one of the very best of the year and a must see for anyone who has grown tired of traditional cinema and is looking for something that is 99.9% pure entertainment.

The prerequisite requirement for any movie based on a video game is that it actually contains references to the source material. The original Resident Evil did this, while setting up a story of its own and introducing new characters. The less fortunate video game movies failed this aspect, which made House of the Dead one of the most unbearable movies in recent memory. I swear that I still have nightmares about seeing that film again. Now, two years after the original’s release, another Resident Evil movie hits the scene basically picking up right where the first left off and successfully bridging the gap between the movie and video game franchises.

For the uninformed, Resident Evil is the multimillion dollar franchise created in the mid-90s and debuting on Sony’s PlayStation. The first game, which was disregarded in the first film adaptation had two teams of specially trained police officers (called S.T.A.R.S.) stumbling upon a mansion deep in the mountains. To make a long story short five members of the team survived only to face a new nightmare soon thereafter. The second and third games in the series, to which the movie references, take place inside Raccoon City where the T-Virus has been unleashed and is turning Raccoon into a city of the dead.

Fresh off of her survival in Resident Evil, Alice (Milla Jovovich) has been captured and experimented on by Umbrella, the evil corporation at the forefront of this outbreak. She will eventually run into Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr), and a few other survivors. Also making an appearance from the video game series is Nemesis a Tyrant-class bio-weapon who sports a mean rocket launcher and mini-gun and turns S.T.A.R.S. into mincemeat.

To enjoy Resident Evil: Apocalypse you need to put yourself in the right mind frame. Essentially the game’s installed fan-base makes this movie equally critic-proof while enjoyable only because first week sales will be driven by fans, such as me, who enjoy the series. Sure, the first film, and now the second, isn’t perfect in any way, in fact I can find a lot of things they did wrong, but when I also look at what they did right a smile comes to my face and I want to see it again.

The most obvious change from the first film to the second is the video game references are handed out in droves this time. The most obvious of which, is the appearance of Jill Valentine in nearly a picture-perfect costume and attitude and Nemesis which both come form Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. If you look hard enough, and believe me, I have, you can also find references to every RE game including the amazing intro to Resident Evil CODE: Veronica complete with helicopter chase and shoot-out. Not only will you find RE references, but there are also shout-outs to other video games including Manhunt and Grand Theft Auto which very few people understood, but had me giddy with glee.

First time feature film director Alexander Witt’s direction is stylistic at times, but also hard to follow. Hollywood’s reliance on the “x-treme camera” during fight scenes is fast becoming tiresome as it makes it harder and harder to appreciate fight scenes when all you see is a big blur from frame to frame. When you do actually get to see some fisticuffs they are well worth the wait. Jovovich’s Alice, who sees herself as the enemy should Sony green-light a third film, is fun to watch kicking zombie butt and taking on Nemesis but the “emotional” attachment left over from the first film leaves the climatic fight scene between the two severely muted. The Nemesis isn’t nearly as imposing as you would believe if you have played the game.

Aside form the questionable camerawork, you aren’t getting award-winning cinema here people, and you need to understand that before you enter the theater. This isn’t the Dawn of the Dead remake or 28 Days Later, this is a video game movie come to life, with bits and pieces of game elements mixed in with original movie franchise pieces placed together in a cohesive mix. Sure there are going to be a lot of people who simply don’t understand the film (one look on Rotten Tomatoes can alert you to that fact) but are aware that a majority of them are simply looking at the film from the same perspective we judge Lord of the Rings or the latest art-house sensation. Resident Evil: Apocalypse simply isn’t that type of film, and after the core audience is satisfied the film will fade away from the box office, but those core fans will be pleased in what they saw, and, in the end, that’s all that really matters when it comes to video game movies. Those expecting full mass-market penetration are simply misled. If you have ever enjoyed a Resident Evil game you will enjoy this film, no doubt about it. RE: A is not a good movie in the sense it creates memorable characters and contains a detailed plot, but it is a good movie by staying close to the source material and providing an outlet to fans starving for the next entry in the series debuting early next year, and, in the end, that’s all I was expecting.

With the recent trend in Hollywood to recreate and remake old movies, many holding a significant nostalgic experience for moviegoers, it seems that maybe studios have run out of new ideas for movies. So far this year we are already being treated to a re-envisioning of Dawn of the Dead and a remake of Walking Tall, and we aren’t even out of March yet. Yet, while New Line’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre update disappointed many fans of the original film, fans of Dawn of the Dead should be very happy with Universal’s update to the cult classic.

For those who have never seen the original film, you will be treated to an energetic, fast-paced zombie infested ride that never seems to let you go. Those that have seen the original will see an energetic, fast-paced update to the zombie infested classic that builds upon the strong points of George A. Romero’s classic, while adding a few of its own. Taking a cue from 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead brings in zombies who are not the stumbling, mindless bodies of our neighbors reanimated for an unknown reason; zombies now have super-human strength and the ability to run our heroes down.

Even before the opening credits flash on screen in smears of blood you know this film isn’t going to dilly around, something that hampered the original film with lots of downtime in between bouts of action. When Ana’s (Sarah Polley) husband is attacked by a neighbor girl in their bedroom, he is only down for less than a minute before he stands back up and has a thirst for blood and a hunger for flesh. Ana is able to escape and meets up with Kenneth (Ving Rhames). Together, with a few other survivors they seek refuge in a shopping mall. Whereas the original took nearly half the film to reach the mall, our updated characters reach it in nearly 15 minutes and then the fun begins.

Romero’s original version of the film was a stab against consumerism, but the updated version of the film drops this not-too-subtle metaphor in place of raw emotion and action. Adding into the mix is the feeling that humans worst enemy is other humans, something already established with the aforementioned 28 Days Later. Even without the deep meaning to the piece, Dawn of the Dead excels in every aspect of film making. It gives us characters that aren’t fully realized, but not completely 2D, it gives us internal and external conflicts, it gives us gore, it gives us love, and it gives us sacrifice and redemption. Everything you are looking for in a non-award-fishing film is presented wholly in this movie.

Fans of the original will find nods to the classic. The chopper, used as the primary mode of transportation in the original, makes a cameo appearance in the beginning of the film. Several of the stores at the shopping mall have been renamed for members of the original cast. For instance, during the first wide-angle shot of the mall a department store called Gaylen Ross can be seen, she is the actress who played Fran. The B.P. Trucking Company is back in the update as well as actors Ken Foree and Scott H. Reiniger in cameos along with the original’s make-up artist, Tom Savini. Luckily, the motorcycle gang does not return this time.

There are some problems here and there with the film. In the beginning the beginnings of a storyline are presented when a character suffers an injury and then falls into contaminated water, but the affects of this happenstance never come to fruition in the film. Also, while the film does contain a very high body count, the extreme gore of the original is not present here. Those looking for a screwdriver in the ear will have to look elsewhere.

Dawn of the Dead is one of the few films that can boast they are just as good, if not better, than the original film they were crafted from. Fans of the original may be a bit disenchanted by the thematic liberty taken by new comer Zack Snyder in the director’s chair, but as different as the film is from the cult classic that spawned it, Dawn of the Dead rises to the occasion.

One part of being an objective reviewer is to keep the opinions of other critics out of your head when you view a movie for review. Sure, there are parts of their review that sink into your head and pop up when you are actually viewing the film, but for the most part I try to keep everything separate.  The pre-release press for House of the Dead was skimpy, but what was released wasn’t good at all. Director Uwe Boll has recently stated that he wants to make a movie based on the hit Dungeon Siege or WarCraft game series, I’m hear to beg and plead Microsoft and Blizzard, respectably, to never let this man within 100 feet of their licenses as House of the Dead now has the crown for worst video game adaptation…ever.

There isn’t just one part of the movie that stands out as the real downfall, there is so much wrong with this so-called-film that I don’t know where to begin. Absolutely no part of this movie is coherent at anytime during the excruciatingly long 90 minute running time what the producers call a script is nothing more than some fanboy fantasy of gratuitous nudity, extreme violence, and the tale of an action hero in a video game.

Our story starts off with a group of friends attempting to charter a boat from Captain Kirk (yes his name really is Captain Kirk and he doesn’t like Star Trek jokes). These over-sexed teens are attempting to hitch a ride to the rave of the century conveniently held on the Island of the Dead (cue evil music). The kids arrive on the island to find the party deserted, the beer on tap, and the guys realize they have tools in their pants that must be used, for fear of rust. Once they finally discover the cheapest zombies in Hollywood are roaming around, they gear up (how convenient that Captain Kirk is a weapons smuggler) and participate in one of the stupidest action sequences ever printed to film.

I originally wanted to give props to Artisan and Uwe Boll for bringing a game like House of the Dead to the big screen. It wouldn’t be an easy task for an arcade game only designed to eat quarters, but now all I see is a huge failure and a missed opportunity to cash in on one of videogaming’s most lucrative licenses.

As the film progresses the teens are picked off one by one, but as they die the lead characters don’t shed a single tear, in fact, after one teen blows himself up with gunpowder a simple, “He didn’t make it,” is all it takes for the grieving to end. Hell, at least the underwhelming House of 1000 Corpses had a respectable house, Dead‘s house looks more like a one bedroom painted grey with a blind groundskeeper, a far cry from the mansion featured in the game.

Most video game adaptations get a bad wrap because they are, in fact, based on video games, believe it or not, but where all those adaptations tried to bring in the masses House of the Dead flaunts the movie’s roots in the stupidest way possible. Between scene transitions the film actually includes clips from the video game, and while this might be okay for stylistic reasons, some of the clips they use prominently feature “Free Play” and other arcade notifications at the bottom of the screen. It looks like some guy with a DV camera filmed some other guy get his butt handed to him and then spliced it into a low-budget horror film.

But what is a horror film without the horror? The zombies, as stated before, are so cheap looking, they look like actors with grey paint. It appears as though they attempted to include every horror cliché imaginable, but where Freddy vs. Jason made the cliché, campy horror genre funny, House of the Dead attempts to take these bits seriously leading to horrible dialog and terrible leaps in believability.

As the film begins the main characters are scared out of their minds. Zombies have just killed all of their friends, but put a gun and grenade in their hand and they become military trained experts landing aerial kicks, reloaded brutally fast, and, presumably, becoming extremely nauseated with the camera swinging around them like it does.

House of the Dead suffers from so much that the film isn’t even worth watching, your $6.50 would much better be spent heading over to the local arcade and logging in an hour’s worth of time with House of the Dead III. It would be a much more rewarding experience and cause much less frustration. Don’t even see this film if you are a fan of the series.

Once in a great while a movie comes along that revolutionizes a genre. Even more difficult is a movie that breaks the mold of the tried and true method of genre film making with over fifty years of canon (history). 28 Days Later from director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, The Beach) is this kind of movie. With a few simple bends and breaks in the rules of zombie movies, 28 Days Later serves as one of the best new films based on the ancient lore of zombies, and, quite possibly, one of the best films that will be released this year.

It seems rare that such an intellectual film would hit during the popcorn movie summer season when big, brainless movies take to the big screen in order to break records and bring in massive audiences. Yet, most of these movies lack the substance to create a memory in the minds of the viewer that won’t dissipate even an hour after leaving the cinema. I already can’t remember what movies I saw a few months ago. As it is with being a film critic/reviewer, you have to see so much it takes an outstanding film to really make you stand up and say, “This is something special, this deserves recognition.” Only a few movies have done that for me over the years. Fight Club, The Matrix, Army of Darkness, and Final Destination are just some of the very select few that remind me why I do what I do. I can now safely add 28 Days Later to that list.

28 Days Later tells the story of a few survivors after a viral outbreak leaves the world devastated with zombies. After a group of animal activists break into a highly volatile lab and attempt to free some experimental specimens. When something goes wrong, as they always appear to, a virus called “Rage” is released into the human population. The similarities to other zombie movies can clearly be seen, but it is from this point on where things get interesting. The virus effects the human body in a much different way than that of previous zombie flicks. Within 30 seconds a typical person is transformed into a crazed being bent on feeding and with the ability to run. Who know transforming the undead from lumbering pacifists to hunger crazed marathon runners could add such an element to the movie. 28 days after infection the entire island of England has been deserted leading to some very cool scenes of our central characters examining the aftermath of such a biological assault.

The movie’s central character, Jim (Cillian Murphy), has so many things to deal with at once, and Boyle takes careful steps to exam each one of them. After being hit by a car on a courier route Jim, presumably, was in a coma for a number of weeks (four to be exact) and wakes up to find the entire country devastated. TV and radio have stopped broadcasting, newspapers read of “Evacuation” and churches are scrawled with text proclaiming the end is near. Its all standard post apocalyptic stuff, but this is all that mixed with some jet fuel and crack blast your brains out with just how good the film really is. Jim eventually meets up with a few other survivors who hear, on the radio, that a brigade of Army personnel are still alive and are able to protect any other survivors. They make a choice to seek out these soldiers and hopefully escape.

The movie holds a very important message that is reiterated in the films opening. People, even when not under the undue influence of antigens, have a general hatred for other people. It just seems to be our nature. While the first part of the film is a superb zombie movie, the second half dives into more of a psychological portrayal of the human brain and what really drives us. Without giving too much away, some things are just too good to be true.

The movie does suffer through a few things in the writing department that would scream out to be obvious. London has rivers and lakes surrounding it. Wouldn’t it be prudent to just get in a boat and drop anchor right in the middle of these bodies of water? Also the ending opens up some continuity problems with statements made earlier in the movie, but none of this detracts from the overall pleasure you get from seeing this film. While not relying too much on scare tactics such as people jumping out of places, there are a good number of “crash” moments that make you jump.

28 Days Later is a refreshing breath of fresh air into an increasingly stale genre. If you can drop any preconceptions that zombie movies have to be mindless decapitation fests you will enjoy 28 Days Later for the storytelling and the revelations that Boyle reveals about humans and our cherishing of life only at the point when it may slip away.