Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer, 2009)

All zombie films, comic or splatterfest, have to acknowledge Romero's Dawn of the Dead as a starting point and then add an angle that justifies a hackneyed genre's continuation. 28 Days Later has probably managed this best in recent years by making the incurably undead rabid, supercharged killing machines and choosing thereby to forego the inherent satire of our fellow citizens being reduced to shuffling uberconsumers. Zombieland doesn't really take these lessons on board; the zombies are somewhere in between, not terribly menacing for all the human flesh caught in their teeth, just obstacles along the nerdy teenage narrator's progress to some kind of comfort zone.
Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray turn up just for laughs...there's not a great deal to add. Films like this will do when you're half-drunk; they'll kill enough time if you're sober, but there's no meat on the bone.

5/10