My Review of 'Zombieland: Double Tap'

I remember the first Zombieland movie. At the time it was a fresh new concept for an aging movie genre. They made fun of the old zombie movies while adding their own twist to the presentation, style and delivery of the dying genre. The executives of Zombieland spent 10 years to figure out how to cash in on the popular film.

10 years is a long time to wait for a sequel. This can work for the film or against it. On one hand you have devoted fans that will still run out and watch this movie but sometimes those fans can be fickle as well. You can't please everyone but you can at least try your best to make a great movie.

I think they spent too much time trying to pander to fans in this sequel. They should have spent more time ironing out the story of the movie. This movie takes place years after the first Zombieland. That makes sense since all of the actors seem much older and yet they do still look very similar to the way they did in the first movie. That is except for Abigail Breslin, who plays Little Rock. She's obviously grown up since she was just a kid in the first movie.

The plot of the movie is based on the fact Little Rock is growing up and going through adolescence. She wants to find a boyfriend and seems to be rebelling from the rest of the gang. So she leaves with some boy to a zombie sanctuary. The rest of the gang goes out searching for her and the movie is basically the gang's crazy exploits finding Little Rock.

It's nice that they used all of the same actors that they did in the first movie. Again I found that this movie was all about pandering to fans. They find a convenient new love interest for pretty much everyone except for Emma Stone's character Wichita.

They even went so far as poked fun at themselves with several "comical" scenes. Some of the jokes and themes of the first movie bleed into this movie as well. That's not to say that they don't have any new and interesting ideas.

They created new enemies that they could have explored more. They went on to introduce new rules to zombie killing. I think that Zoey Deutch's character Madison stole the show in a lot of scenes. Although the way that they brought her into the movie was kind of heavy handed and pulled me from the movie.

There were a ton of convenient situations that kind of threw me off this movie. I know it's not supposed to be realistic or even make that much sense for that matter but there seemed like something was wrong with this movie. I enjoyed the first movie and I was wondering why I didn't enjoy the second movie as much. It was really tough to figure this out especially since the sequel pretty much took a similar formula to the first movie and it even felt like a sequel to the Zombieland series.

I finally figured it out. There wasn't anymore character progression in this movie for the main characters. Nothing changes throughout the movie. In the first movie, Jesse Eisenberg's character Columbus was a naive character that grew to become a stronger and more courageous character. Even Wichita learned her lesson about running away in the first movie. Her character in the sequel kind of reverted back to the same character she was in the first movie.

All this to say, I still had a few chuckles but it wasn't as many as I was expecting. There were even times when I actually felt bored while watching this movie. It's a shame too because I really liked the first movie and I was hoping for at least a decent sequel. I guess if sequels come out too late they have a tendency to be terrible. This follows a line of other sequels that came out a little too late such as: Anchorman 2, Zoolander 2 and Dumb and Dumber 2.

Overall, it hurts me to say this but I can't recommend this movie. Even as a fan of the original Zombieland you might not like this movie. I watched this with some friends and they liked Zombieland: Double Tap but I just don't see it. I have to give this movie a 6 out of 10. It's truly unfortunate that this had to happen. I really wanted to like this film.