Director: Ruben Fleischer
Year: 2019
Country: USA/Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
After moving on with their lives, the group of friends decides to get back together and head out into the zombie-filled world they left behind to save them, meeting not just other survivors to adapt to their family but a deadlier strain of zombie that endangers everyone around them.
Review:
This was a solid and serviceable follow-up. The film’s at it’s best with the continued storyline of the characters once again as they continue to survive. That this goes into the various individuals in the group and gives each one their own storyline to help show their growth and evolution over time that just so happens to take place during a zombie apocalypse makes for a fun time here. From the proxy-father figure teaching the kids how to grow up and make their own lot in life to realizing the need for independence and leaving the nest to a surrogate marriage and how to deal with someone new that might disrupt their relationship, these are all given plenty of time to play out within the context of continuous zombie ambushes that are woven into the film which also forces along their relationships in a great, interconnected puzzle. That these are fun and enjoyable while getting the characters plenty to like about each other is what makes these so much fun.
That also goes hand-in-hand with some decent zombie encounters. The hard-hitting opening that shows the group blasting through the zombies in their march to the White House gets this started on a perfect note as everyone gets to shine blasting them in the face with high-tech weaponry. Along the way, scenes like the battle in the mall where they pick up the other survivor, the caravan finding the zombies at the parked tour-bus or the missing sister finding the running zombies along the way get this one going with a solid series of action scenes out on the road. As well, the fantastic confrontation at the motel is impressively choreographed and incredibly fun, keeping this one moving along at a great clip with the road-movie aesthetic keeping this moving to new locations to battle the zombies before getting to the high-quality finale which is the confrontation at the sanctuary against the enhanced zombies featuring tons of action and lots of fun gore. With the comedy still quite funny and quite appropriate for the tone of the film here, there’s a lot of positive aspects at work here.
There are a few issues with this one. The biggest problem here is the randomness of the inserts to try to be meta in how this approaches the time they’ve been together. Making up names for the zombies based on pop-culture celebrities, doing random insert shots of people around the world attempting to pull off incredibly elaborate, convoluted, over-the-top and impossible-to-pull-off in any realistic sense type of kills on zombies come off trying to be quite hip and fresh. However, these end up disrupting the flow of the main storyline involving the group going out for their friend by doing these cutaways and inserts to people around the world in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. As well, the main reliance on setting up the romance angle for everyone makes for a pretty suspenseless time because everyone is bound to end up with a partner, rendering their encounters meaningless due to keeping the relationships intact. However, these here aren’t detrimental and don’t hold it back much.
Overview: ****/5
Not nearly as clever or fun as the original but still far more worthwhile than expected, this is a definitely worthy follow-up that keeps the film upbeat and entertaining over it’s few minor, barely detrimental issues. This is definitely the most impactful for fans of the original or those that enjoy lighthearted horror/comedies while those that weren’t fans of the original or into this style of films should heed caution.
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