Zombieland: Double Tap

A passable sequel to a passable film, Zombieland: Double Tap details the ongoing misadventures of Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and their encounters with a handful of new characters (including Rosario Dawson’s Nevada and Zoey Deutch’s Madison). There’s little doubt that Zombieland: Double Tap improves steadily as it progresses, as the movie’s been saddled with a less-than-compelling opening stretch that’s compounded by filmmaker Ruben Fleischer’s oddly low-key approach to Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Dave Callaham’s episodic screenplay. (The forced conflict between Eisenberg and Stone’s respective characters doesn’t help, certainly.) The lack of momentum is problematic, no doubt, but it’s clear that the various actors’ uniformly personable work does help compensate, while the movie’s comparatively engrossing second half, which includes an impressively effective climax, ensures that the whole thing ultimately fares better than one might’ve initially suspected. The fun, tongue-in-cheek mid-credits sequence cements Zombieland: Double Tap‘s place as an erratic yet sporadically fun followup, although it’s just as clear that the picture is never quite able to wholeheartedly justify its very existence.

**1/2 out of ****