Sunday 16 January 2011

AM - Zombieland opening

Director + Year: Ruben Fleischer (2009) 
IMdb Rating: 7.8/10
Budget: $23,600,000
Gross: $75,590,286 (USA) £3,001,207 (UK)
Synopsis
Searching for family. In the early twenty-first century, zombies have taken over America. A shy and inexperienced college student in Texas has survived by following his 30 rules: such as "look in the back seat," "shoot twice," "avoid public restrooms." He decides to travel to Ohio to see if his parents are alive. He gets a ride with a boisterous zombie-hating good-old boy headed for Florida, and soon they confront a young woman whose sister has been bitten by a zombie and wants to be put out of her misery. The sisters were headed to an LA amusement park they've heard is zombie free. Can the kid from Ohio get to his family? And what about rule thirty one? 

Deconstruction
The whole opening is 4 minutes 40 seconds. We first see an establishing shot of the american flag with non diegetic speech over the top, the footage is home made as it being recored upside down, of a car on its roof. When it twists around and levels out, the camera work is obviously done by someone in the movie, as it is shaky and looks like homemade footage, as the clip comes to an end we see the footage flicker as the person gets chased. 


We see many fast takes in the Opening "Rules" that the protagonist has, of the zombies running, this is something we want to make clear in our film, we are using the idea of "Zack Snyder" Zombies. using the idea of fast zombies instead of the original Romero style, catatonic and weak zombies. Some Slow Motion is also used in some if not all of the scenes.


After the "rule" phase which is narrated by the protagonist, we see a range of Extreme Slow Motion chases and special effects throughout. Throughout the credits we hear Metallica - For Whom the bells toll - which is a metal song, which signifies that the movie is going to be violent.


IMdb user review:
I just was exiting the theater after seeing '9', which is also worth a look, when my friend and I were offered tickets to a preview screening of Zombieland, which began almost immediately. I had seen previews for this picture, but I'd say this exceeded my expectations, which isn't to say masterpiece, but it was certainly entertaining, and at about 90 minutes, didn't really overstay it's welcome. 
As you might expect for this genre, it's quite gory, so don't go expecting a light 'R' rating. But if you can handle some bloodshed, no, make that a substantial amount of bloodshed - but perhaps I should add in a comic environment - there's some pretty funny stuff here. Woody Harreleson and Jesse Eisenberg make an amusing odd couple and Emma Stone was fine for this material, although she and Abigale Breslin had slightly less to do. 
I'm certainly no expert on the horror genre or the zombie sub-genre, but I can say that this wasn't as scary as Shaun of the Dead, in fact not very scary at all, I may have jumped back just a tiny bit a few times; however I may have laughed more. However I'm sure it does make a difference that I saw 'Shaun' alone on DVD, while 'Zombieland' I watched in a theater full of people laughing, clapping and cheering. 
Let's face it, you know what's going to happen in this flick, but I'm happy to say, plot conventions and all, this delivers enough laughs so if you know what you're getting into I doubt you'll regret laying down the price of admission for this sucker. Should you see it, see it opening night - if I haven't made it clear enough already, this is the kind of movie where the more enthusiastic people in the theater, the more fun it will be. And to end on a very positive note, 'Zombieland' does feature what just might go down in history as the best celebrity cameo of all time.
SOURCE:(akerdan - imdb user) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1156398/ 

1 comment:

  1. set out quotes clearly, and provide the hyperlink - as you haven't done so, it would be easy to overlook your own analysis which follows on from the opening long quote from IMDB! use the quote tool in blogger, and change the font for quotes
    the user comment you've copied in has gone to small size font, needs to be normal

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