Dead and loving it

Zombieland
DIRECTED BY: Ruben Fleischer
STARRING: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin
CERT: 16

Recent classics Shaun Of The Dead and 28 Days Later finally have some real competition in the zombie movie stakes.
Zombieland is the kind of film Quentin Tarantino would be making if he hadn’t disappeared where the sun don’t shine, if he was less concerned with showing off for the geeks than simply having fun. Thankfully director Ruben Fleischer still knows what genuine entertainment is.
Mad Cow Disease (ah, if only they’d waited – it could have been swine flu) has mutated into a virus that turns its victims into lunatics with a wild craving for human flesh. And so the zombies have taken over the world.
Columbus (Eisenberg) is one of the last humans standing, a young man who has survived the carnage thanks largely to his chronic OCD – which has gone into overdrive now that there’s a genuine threat to his continued existence. Though his biggest fear is still clowns.
Columbus wants to get home to Ohio to see if his parents are alive. Along the way, he hitches a ride with Tallahassee (Harrelson), a tough-nut survivor on his way to Florida, killing zombies all round him as he goes. He’s also on a treasure hunt – a personal mission to find an edible Twinkie.
Stopping at a store to search for some, the lads encounter more zombies and cross swords with another couple of survivors – Wichita (Stone) and her young sister, Little Rock (Breslin). These girls are no little innocents and their relationship with the boys gets off to a rocky start. But they soon team up and head for Los Angeles, where rumour has it there’s a zombie-free amusement park.
En route, they drop by the Hollywood home of a comic legend, where they play Monopoly and catch a classic movie – and where Ghostbusters fan Columbus gets himself mixed up in a tragic case of mistaken identity.
Zombieland is a hoot from start to finish – and combined with plenty of fine action, a decent dose of frights, a little romance, a great performance by Woody Harrelson, and an inspired cameo, it’s the most enjoyable thing I’ve seen in a long while. 

Up
DIRECTED BY: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
VOICES: Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Christopher Plummer
CERT: G

Like Wall-E before it, Up begins with some wonderful character development, before literally taking off on what is pretty much a by-the-book adventure. Though, as adventures go, it’s an impressive one and, unlike Wall-E, the characters don’t get lost in the middle of it.
Carl Frederickson (Asner) and his wife Ellie (Elie Docter) had always dreamed of moving to Paradise Falls – a lost land where Carl’s boyhood adventure hero Charles Muntz (Plummer) vanished.
But life has flown by and Carl is now a lonesome old man. His beloved Ellie has died, he’s in danger of losing his house, and, after an unfortunate incident with a builder, he’s about to be sent to a nursing home.
So he ties hundreds of helium balloons to the house and takes off, heading for South America to finally fulfill the old wish. But Carl soon learns that there’s a stowaway on board – an eager little boy called Russell (Nagai) who just wants to help an elderly person and earn a boy-scout badge.
Cue the big adventure – which is a lot of fun, and visually spectacular, magical even at times. But writer/directors Docter and Peterson are always concerned primarily with their characters – who, in the best Pixar tradition, have more genuine heart than most of their human Hollywood counterparts.
And in Carl’s case, a depth and a sadness that is rare in a live action film, let alone an animated feature.
Another triumph for the Pixar gang.

Love Happens
DIRECTED BY: Brandon Camp
STARRING: Aaron Eckhart, Jennifer Aniston
CERT: 12A

Aaron Eckhart’s motivational speaker Burke is another well-written grieving husband (two in one week – the end is surely nigh) but the rest of the film doesn’t really do him justice.
Dr Burke Ryan’s books and seminars have made him a huge success, and helped many to deal with their grief – while the man himself keeps the pain of his own loss well under wraps. Until he arrives for a conference in Seattle and meets Eloise (Aniston), a florist who has sworn off men forever – or at least until she meets one who might just need her to help heal his soul. And if he looks like Aaron Eckhart, all the better.
Writer/director Brandon Camp has a fine idea here, but the end result looks suspiciously like his script has been watered down on its way through the studio mincer. Eckhart does a fine job and Aniston is always likeable but she’s lumped with a weak role here and so her talents are lost on what ultimately descends into a harmless, vanilla rom-com.