Zombieland

If you want to survive a zombie apocalypse - and I'm sure you do - you could do worse than take note of young Columbus' (as in Ohio) basic rules. For the most part they are eminently practical, such as make sure your kill is indeed dead (or even more dead than before); avoid restrooms as you end up fast food; and above all, don't be a hero. They must work as Columbus, despite carting a suitcase everywhere ("travel light"), is still alive. Tallahassee (as in Florida) meanwhile is much more what one expects of a survivor. Admittedly not everyone can possess his awesome zombie-killing skills, but they are something to aspire to. A master of all kinds of automatic weaponry, he also proves adept with shears, car doors and the trusty old baseball bat. However, even this alpha male finds himself regularly deprived of both transport and weapons by the wiles of two young girls, Witchita and Little Rock. It's refreshing that for most of the film the female contingent run rings around the menfolk, whether dead or alive. Of course, it can't last and the finale is set in motion by an act of such mind-blowing stupidity, guaranteed to attract every zombie in LA (despite the amount of noise the characters make the rest of time which bizarrely never draws zombies) that you feel the girls actually deserve to get eaten for being so dense. But never fear, the men come to the rescue! Wouldn't it be nice if just for once it was the other way round ...
This though is a small gripe compared to the gleeful mayhem present elsewhere. There's one genuine shock (you actually know it's coming but it still works) but it's not a particularly scary film - though having said that, it nevertheless provoked my usual post-zombie film nightmare. It is however very, very funny, even finding time for a Deliverance joke. There's also a pricelessly surreal celebrity cameo with a cracking payoff (again, you can see it coming but it doesn't matter) and a hilarious letting-off-steam-by-trashing-a-store sequence (see what I mean about noone worrying about making a noise?) You WILL feel good about the end of the world. Oh, and rember what Columbus said: the fatties were the first ones to go in the apocalypse so work on that cardio now.