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Infamous (Video Game Review)

By Andrew on April 26th, 2010

Originally written and posted on June 16, 2009.

Infamous

Infamous is a third person sandbox style game developed by Sucker Punch Productions exclusively for the PS3. While Sucker Punch has had experience in 3D platforming with the Sly Cooper series on the PS2 (the company’s only other notable franchise), Infamous is only their first project for Sony’s next generation console. This is quite the luxurious property for Sony to have in its pocket since Infamous is not just an exclusive new IP, but quite an ambitious game as well.

A terse description of Infamous would be “Electric Spider-Man sans web-swinging,” but this is only half the package. While the gameplay boasts platforming that is largely fluent with varied combat (gameplay that speaks for itself), Infamous is equally as ambitious with its narrative design. A superhero parable unravels as the player traverses the game’s Empire City, or rather two separate parables unravel depending on whether you play a resplendent or reprehensible game. Infamous espouses its morality as much as its electricity oriented gameplay, and these two elements are permanently tied to each other. If both of these aspects were able to succeed in equal measure, Infamous would have truly been a remarkable experience. But when the morality stumbles, the gameplay is brought down with it. The botched handling of the game’s ethical grounding is the only thing that holds Infamous back. A complaint that many will gleefully overlook in favour of blasting enemies off of high-rises with shockwaves and lightening bolts, but it’s still a complaint that ought to be examined in order to discover just how close Infamous was to shocking everyone (pun intended).

The root problem with Infamous is that its morality is incredibly superficial. It doesn’t matter whether or not you choose to head down the righteous path because you will experience the exact same game regardless. The only difference in the narrative between the good and evil play through are certain dialogue trees, and even still these differences are very minute. A good example of this is the mission “Anything for Trish” which occurs around half way through the game. You’re tasked with providing Trish and a busload of injured civilians with safe transit from the Neon district to a hospital in the Warren (or: escort a bus from island 1 to island 2). If you’ve been playing a heroic game, you will reconcile with Trish after the mission. If you’ve been playing an infamous game, Trish breaks up with you for good. Her reaction to you isn’t based on shades of grey, and it doesn’t matter how far along either path you are. There are only two possibilities, and it’s based solely on whether you’re immediately good or bad.

Stark black and white is perfectly fine by me, provided that there is a unique game built around both extremes. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. There is no distinct and unique progression through the game that changes based on your behaviour, and there are no alignment specific story missions. Good or bad, the game is the same. The only difference is the epilogue, and whether or not Trish dies liking you at the end of it all.

But how can you have the exact same game approached from polar opposite characters, and still expect the narrative to make sense? The simple answer is that you can’t. Contrary to what the title of the game might lead you to believe, the canonical story is most likely the virtuous one, and I have two main reasons for this (one speculative and one substantial). As with the vast majority of fiction, not only is the good guy supposed to win, but he is ostensibly destined to. I think that the developers had this in mind when they created the game. The narrative was built around a sense of moral integrity on the player’s behalf while the dark side was approached as a novelty. You’re expected to be a good boy, while the evil option exists mainly to offer a reason to beat the game again.

The more substantial reason is that the story simply doesn’t make any sense from the evil perspective. Why would evil Cole even bother with his bitchy girlfriend? Why would he entertain the whims of an FBI agent of dubious legitimacy? Why would he willingly help paramedics and police officers? The majority of the story based missions have clear moral aims, whether it’s rescuing hostages, protecting a prison, or cleaning up Empire City. Certainly there are less than wholesome options for consideration during those missions, but the intended outcome is clearly a benevolent one. It’s almost a reversal of Machiavelli’s maxim, where the ends consist of free range malevolence and the means is a collection of helpful chores.

What bothers me most are the many opportunities for separate ascensions to God’s right hand and express elevators to hell available. For example, the boss of the Neon District (again, island 1) is a woman named Sasha who controls the area’s reapers via a black hallucinogenic tar. She taunts and teases you as you travel through the tunnel to her base of operations with all these delightful quips about how you should watch out for traffic when you visit her and about how you should get dressed properly to meet the dinner reservation at 7PM. She’s a very charismatic and evil person, and exactly the type of person evil Cole should hook up with. How great would that have been? It gives the moral elements some serious weight and creates a unique divergent story to explore. It even happens at an idealtime in the game, immediately before the world opens up and just after you’ve had time to explore both sides of your power. This is where the game’s real disappointment and disconnect lies. There’s no split story to match with the split morality.

If the developers wanted to ameliorate this disconnect without going through the trouble and cost of doubling development time, I can think of one option that they should’ve considered: axing the morality meter (or at least the immediate visualization of it). For the entire game, the top left corner of the screen is occupied by a meter that lets you know exactly how good or bad you’ve been. If that had been removed, along with the incessant reminders of morality that appear after a completed mission, the game would’ve been better for it.

Don’t get me wrong, the problem isn’t the moral issue itself, but with how overt and apparent it is. Morality is ambiguous and, if you will, subtle. There is no subtlety to the way Infamous handles morality; it’s right there in plain sight at all times, looking you square in the eye. The outcome of the very first moral choice, which has you rescuing some suspended relief supplies, even reflects this. If you share them with the general population and pursue altruism, you are blessed with sterling blue bolts. If you hoard the supplies for Trish, Zeke (your best friend), and yourself, you are blessed with badass red bolts. Your course of action for the entire game is more or less determined within the first five minutes, offering no middle ground or sense of leniency.

If nothing else, an attempt should’ve been made at pursuing the illusion of choice instead of boiling the issue down to extremes. Perhaps the game should’ve started the player off with pure white bolts (pure in the sense of being unadulterated) that gradually change colour to reflect the player’s actions? Couple this with more diverse dialogue trees and a reduced emphasis on the stark contrast between good and evil, and this would’ve given the player the freedom to carve their own unique path through the game. It wouldn’t make the inherent dichotomy any more or less distinct, but at least the flaw would no longer be so clear.

This ties neatly into another problem, which is the way Cole’s powers evolve and become stronger. Cole’s strength is directly linked to how good or evil he is, which means trekking the neutral path is a suicide mission. You need to be either heroic or infamous in order to utilize the best powers, otherwise you remain weak. If you flit between a thug and a guardian, don’t expect to last very long. This isn’t so much of a big deal in itself, I mean even Spider-Man was pretty useless when he began doubting himself, but what it does do is render the experience point system obsolete. You need to be at the next karma level in order to purchase the upgrades with all the experience points you’ve been needlessly saving, and once you hit that level, you basically have enough experience to buy every necessary upgrade anyway. It’s a nuisance, which delays the fun juggernaught aspect arbitrarily. Doubly so too, when certain story missions need to be completed before those karma levels become available. Even if you systematically butcher every resident of the Neon district (once again, island 1) the game will still call you a worthless thug because you haven’t turned the power grid back on yet.

Sadly, once your karma is maxed out in either direction, there’s only one measly alignment specific power. The tough and righteous path rewards you with Overload Burst, a focused electrical blast which is useless even before you wrap your fingers around the odd button combination (Hold L1, hold R2 to charge then release R2 to fire), where as malevolence allows you to arc lightening Palpatine-style. Though truth be told good powers are more concerned with precision and finesse while evil powers are more for extravagant destruction, which is evidenced in the unique ways certain attacks power up. However this doesn’t change the fact that one unique power per side is hardly any fun at all. Don’t let this criticism mislead you into thinking that Infamous’ electricity based gameplay is limited. Shock grenades, electric missiles, thunder drops, shockwaves and lightening storms are all toys in Cole’s arsenal (along with the standard thunderbolt), but these are available to both alignments. Only one single unique power each is alignment specific.

The means to obtain the unique power is also rather strange. They’re not unlocked based on your karma rank or your experience, but rather on how many good or evil side quests you’ve completed. Side quests are littered around all three of Empire City’s island, but only ten on each have any moral consequence (five good, five evil). In order to unlock the unique power, you need to complete the five side quests on each island that affect your morality. This can be misleading because most side quests involve doing something that is largely benevolent, such as destroying enemy security cameras and retrieving medical supplies, and you might wonder why you’re not receiving a positive credit for it. No, the difference between a good and evil side quest is that the completion of one locks the other out. While this further deepens the dichotomy between the game’s idea of good and evil, it is a rather interesting way to become stronger. Shame that it makes no sense in the grand scheme of things since Cole receives new powers through powerful electrical surges when he re-establishes generator circuits, but it’s a neat thought all the same.

Side quests in themselves are rather oddly handled since they both decrease the enemy respawn rates in the affected area and inspire the civilian populace to grab a broom and clean the place up. The game calls this “reclaiming territory,” which is something I find strange. I can understand why this works for a virtuous play through since you’d presumably be an inspiration for the people, a man who is taking back the city for them (also another point in my favour for calling this the canonical ending), but how does this work for the evil run? It’s dropped in banter that you may be scaring the citizens into uniting against you, which still seems rather flimsy. Why can’t I be an agent for one of the gangs tearing the city apart, expanding our territory? That would certainly explain why no one attacks me anymore since I’m the vengeful war God of Empire City who no one dares oppose. Still, the result of all this is a severe reduction of wooden ducks for you to take aim at, and now you have to ask yourself what’s keeping you around. Once the game is finished and all the side quests have been completed, where’s the fun in exploring a city with hardly any obstacles to overcome?

In truth, there isn’t very much. Dead Drops, Blast Shards, and Trophies are all that remain for you. Dead Drops are satellite dishes that hold information and expand the story when collected, and are worth three trophies. Blast Shards are electrically charged bits of debris that increases your electricity capacity, and once again collecting them nets you three trophies. Once the main game is completed, side missions and all, it’s time for a good old fashioned and incredibly tedious scavenger hunt. While collecting Dead Drops isn’t much of an ordeal because there are only 32 of them and the game kindly keeps track, Blast Shards are a completely different beast. The explosion that gave Cole superpowers and wiped out six square city blocks scattered literally hundreds of blast shards across Empire City. There is no simple way to keep track of them. The game does not let you know how many you have or even how many of them are out there. To make matters worse, certain blast shards can only be attained through moral side missions, which means the trophy can be locked out of your play through. Your only way to know you’ve collected them all is when the delightful “trophy achieved” soundbyte dances in your ear. This specific sound is one I will never enjoy.

While it may seem like I’ve written a negative review of Infamous, I assure you this isn’t the case. Infamous is a truly great game, start to finish. It is the rare game that never dragged on or left me begging for the final cinematic (even Resident Evil 4 pressed my buttons in the third act). While there are certainly questionable design choices, the occasional glitch (falling through buildings was common), and an unfortunate and permeating sense of squandered potential, Infamous was the most fun I’ve had with a video game since learning to effectively use the kick pedal in Rock Band 2. While I never always agreed with the game, the visceral and satisfying electrical powers are incredible fun. The city is thoughtfully crafted with unique and distinct landmarks occupying each of the three boroughs, and the gameplay is fairly tight, save for the “mash X to ascend building” rigmarole. The only thing the game really lacks is a bigger selection of enemies with a more varied design, and a more finely tuned story. Still, Infamous is an excellent game despite this. A very strong title that demands the attention of any PS3 owner.

Infamous is exclusive to the PS3.

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Burnout Paradise (Video Game Review)

By Andrew on April 26th, 2010

Originally written on October 17, 2008.

Burnout Paradise

Racing games tend to camp out on two extremes of a difficulty spectrum, which often makes them very hard for me to enjoy. On one end of the spectrum, there are piss easy and unremarkable romps through juvenile cookie cutter track designs that lose any sense of fun because no amount of skill is required as long as you understand which button it is that makes the car move. Polar opposite to this are racing simulators, which are so nuanced and complex that you could spend an eternity attempting to master the game and never actually win half of the races. In my experience, the single exception to the racing genre has been the Burnout series. I have fond memories of Burnout 3 in particular, what with all the high velocity scrap metal flying everywhere. There are games that encourage reckless driving, and then there is Burnout that dedicates entire game modes to it.

Burnout Paradise is the series’ first foray into the shiny next generation. It was released around the Christmas 2007 area, but I’ve only been able to play it for the last couple of weeks when a friend of a friend of mine stole a copy from Toys’R’Us and left it in the dairy cooler (he also left a PS3 dualshock controller in there too, so I thank him for that as well.) Aside from the reliable vehicular mayhem the Burnout series has been known for, Paradise kicks it up a notch by giving us an open world to explore. Progress in the game is kept by means of a licensing system. They start you off with a trainer’s permit and a rust bucket, and fancy cars and prestige are just grinding the same dozen or so races away.

I’ll admit, open world games tend to confuse me. I can see and appreciate the appeal of options and variety, but I’d much rather have expectations to meet, even if they are relatively obtuse. In Burnout Paradise, there is no story to trudge through. There is no specific objective you need to meet. It’s the type of game where the satisfaction in beating it, a satisfaction I’ve grown up on with adventure and role-playing games, is completely nonexistent. The type of victory I tend to cherish in games can be declared in Burnout Paradise if you turned the game on successfully.

If Burnout Paradise weren’t intermittently fun, there would be little incentive to grind events for license upgrades. The fun bits all consist of wanton destruction though, and if you’ve seen one high speed wreckage, frankly you’ve seen them all. While it may sound like I’m understating the enjoyment of watching glossy metal heaps pirouette through the air, understand that every time this happens to you, the control is seized and you’re forced to watch what’s left of your car’s chassis slam into pillars and buildings. You’d be inhuman to think this isn’t entertaining, but you’d also be inhuman to claim that this doesn’t wear your patience down to a bloody stump because these sections often occur several times a minute for several seconds. When you do more slow motion twisted metal ballet than actual racing, something has gone wrong.

When immense frustration has taken its toll on you, simply driving around town is both therapeutic and inspiring. To the game’s credit, exploration of the open world is encouraged through deliberately placed gates and billboards to drive through, as well as the liberal placement of ramps that line most every road. The most fun to be had is found by driving around and seeing what there is to jump off of. Again, all of which is available from minute one, so there is really no consequence to anything you do.

There are three types of cars in Burnout Paradise. Speed cars which take you from point A to point B as fast possible while avoiding the many Point C’s (that’s C for crash, by the way). Aggression cars for the bullies who like hogging three lanes and forcing everyone caught in the wake into a ditch, and Stunt cars that are optimized for rolling and jumping and all sorts of fun stuff that while heavily advertised, never seems to happen when I’m playing. Combined with the event types, a “right tool for the right job” philosophy is clearly at work here.  And if you somehow happened to miss that fact, the incredibly annoying DJ Atomica is all too happy to fill your ear with how stupid you are for driving an aggression type car in a race.

Providing you are driving the right car for the right event, the game becomes incredibly easy. My favourite mode of Burnout 3 was Road Rage, an event where the game tells you how many rival cars you need to break, and then sets you on your way until you either run out of time or break your own car. In Paradise, driving what I like to call the “Fuck You Mobile,” which is actually any aggression class auto, during a Road Rage event results in the game giving you so many points that you might mistake it for feeling sorry for you. A take down target as high as fifteen actually required skill to meet in Burnout 3, but I managed to hit triple digits in Paradise before I got bored and ended the event of my own volition.

Conversely, races range in difficulty from sadistic to super-sadistic. Not because they are particularly challenging, but because victory is often one cheap unavoidable crash out of reach. You‘ll often crash mere yards from the finish line, only to watch the game mock you by granting first through seventh place to the people who crawled past you as the camera was enjoying watching you skid on your roof in the opposite direction oh so much.  I suppose I could also bitch about how annoying it is to chart a course to triumph at speeds in excess of mach thirty-eight, but I’ve already written far too much about this game as it stands.

Paradise is rather bipolar in that there are sporadic moments of great signature Burnout fun in what strikes me as glorified nothing. What the player wants to do and what the game wants to do don’t often go hand in hand, so the game responds by frustrating you into submission. Had I played the game casually as opposed to combatively, I might have had a more favourable opinion of it. But this consideration can only excuse so many of the games faults. I used to think all racing games were required by law to have a speedometer, so the absence of it in Paradise strikes me as a rather curious omission. Give it a shot, but I won’t blame you if decide to pawn it off after a week or two.

Review based on PS3 version.

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Push (Movie Review)

By Andrew on April 26th, 2010

Originally written and posted on February 6, 2009.

Push

Action films get a bad rep for being blue collar boom fests with nary an intelligent thought or idea to be found in the greased up testosterone fuelled protagonist, and if the conscious director wants to remedy this predilection, their first instinct always seems to be to thicken the story with pseudo sciences and psychology. The thought being that if you can confuse the audience, you can claim intellectual victory. Never has this thought been quite so aptly demonstrated until Push, a movie that tears vital organs from other better science fiction franchises in order to create a Frankenstein monster of questionable legitimacy.

Back in 1945, the Nazis began tinkering with ways to weaponize people with unique psychic powers through various drugs in an effort to build an unstoppable army of dubious loyalty (is there anything they can’t do?). World War II ended, but all the major governments of the world decided to keep working on their psychic weapons, eventually dedicating facilities and agencies to the project. In the present day, psychics are trained and categorized through Division, an agency that either recruits psychics or uses them as guinea pigs, largely depending on what kind of mood their in. Psychics that don’t comply live on the run, usually in Hong Kong or other similar densely populated foreign cities that make for captivating cinematography to the western eye (see: The Incredible Hulk [2008]).

Frequent readers of mine know that I like to spend as little time as possible on the story in order to move on to the more interesting strengths and weaknesses of the film, so understand that dedicating two paragraphs to synopsis shows just how convoluted this movie is. Psychic weapons are classified as Movers, Pushers, Bleeders, Stitchers, Watchers, staplers, etc. based on ability. Movers can telekinetically manipulate the world around them, Pushers can insert thoughts and emotions into their quarrel, Watchers see the future, and so on. Bearing this in mind, try and wrap your head around this: Push follows a Mover (Chris Evans) and a Watcher (Dakota Fanning) as they evade capture from American Division Sniffs and Pushers, as well as the Chinese Psychic Mafia. Along the way, they make the acquaintance of a Pusher (Camilla Belle) who recently escaped a Division testing lab, and it’s this mysterious Pusher that has everyone all edgy and trigger happy.

In all fairness, it’s actually a pretty good premise. If you’re willing to look past the fact that Division is essentially a multi-million dollar pet project with absolutely no purpose for existing, the fact that no government would ever invest in such a ludicrous army of fickle fidelity, and the fact that the film shamelessly distorts the established time context before anyone can even raise a question of continuity, you might find yourself being entertained. Yet being ignorant to these flaws likely isn’t going to be enough. I watched the film rather studiously, and I still had absolutely no idea what the fuck was going on. Unless you had a hand in the scripting and screenplay, you’re probably going to feel the same way.

Nobody watches a film about warring psychics in Hong Kong for the story though. High pitched stunningly choreographed fight scenes are the real selling point, and unfortunately, there aren’t nearly enough of them. For sake of comparison, Taken was a ninety minute film with a solid seventy minutes of action. Push on the other hand is twenty minutes longer with half as much time spent toying with psychic badassery. It’s hard to find silver linings when you walk out confused and dissatisfied. At the same time, the cinematography is splendid. Striking camerawork and a great colour palette amplify the criminally few times people get their guns out.

So what exactly am I trying to say here? Excellent premise that is severely botched, fantastic potential for thrilling action that is never used, a densely convoluted story that somehow still manages to be engaging, and a strong cast that is never challenged. Push draws a perfect line down the median between excellent and terrible, and I can only hope that future films in what could very well be a franchise make sense of it all.

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Slumdog Millionaire (Movie Review)

By Andrew on April 26th, 2010

Originally written and posted on January 7, 2009.

Slumdog Millionaire

I think it’s safe to say that Danny Boyle is the most unpredictable director working today. In fourteen short years, the man has covered heroin, zombies, childhood fantasy, science fiction, and now Bollywood. It really makes you wonder if there’s anything the man can’t do.

Slumdog Millionaire may seem like a rather cryptic title, but it’s really deceptively simple. An Indian slumdog named Jamal is on one hell of a hot streak on the Indian iteration of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Unfortunately, his success is more than a little curious, and complications arise when people start asking how an uneducated sewer rat turned errand boy is able to go farther in the game than erudite doctors and lawyers. During the overnight gap after the penultimate question, Jamal is abducted and interrogated mob style, since the producers are convinced he’s nothing but a lowly cheat. In order to convince the officers of his innocence and seemingly Irish style luck, Jamal recalls the childhood circumstances that gave him the answers to the questions on the show.

While the word “Bollywood” will likely deter more than a few people from seeing this film, the application of the word is simply a broad label. The Bollywood elements that most people think of when they hear the word are largely kept to a minimum. No high octane spontaneous song and dance numbers, no ridiculously enthusiastic dialogue, no garish colours stabbing your eyeballs. The film’s energy is subdued yet forceful, which is what one might have come to expect from Danny Boyle. However it is worth pointing out that the end credits march to the tune of classic Bollywood song and dance, so it feels as if the producers are taking satisfaction in their trickery (clever bastards).

The cinematography is excellent. Inspired shots, great palette, and deft editing really create a tight film. There’s no real jarring discrepancies between Jamal’s past and his current highly publicized predicament, although it’s reasonable to feel that the narrative has been slightly cheapened by recurrent time shifts. It works for the most part, but a solid handle on the present moment would have helped a great deal.

As far as acting is concerned, the players are solid, but that’s about it. They all give good performances, potentially even breakout performances, but no one in particular really rises above or stands out from the rest (this is to be expected since this film is the biggest production for many people involved). A lot of this also has to do with how the three leads are each portrayed by three different actors depicting different periods of their lives, so screen time is equally divvied up and uniformly focused.

The only downside of Slumdog Millionaire is how predictable the whole affair is. Walking in without expectations somewhat alleviated this problem for me, but it only takes a few minutes to realize exactly where the film will end up. How surprised you are by the ending depends in almost direct proportion on how much of a hopeless romantic you consider yourself. Though it’s worth noting that if you fall into this category, you’ll enjoy Slumdog Millionaire regardless. If you don’t, your enjoyment will only be hindered by how much you dislike having your perception of time jostled about. A real gem, and a hearty contender for the Best Picture of 2008.

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Zombieland (Movie Review)

By Andrew on April 26th, 2010

Originally written and posted on October 2, 2009.

Zombieland

Is there really any point in summarizing the plot of a zombie movie anymore, or even bothering with a vague introduction to the genre and what to expect? To be entirely blunt, chances are that if you know what a zombie is, you know what Zombieland is about; some unlucky chap gets infected with an incurable virus that spreads like the bubonic plague, turning boring and uninteresting people into boring and uninteresting people that have suddenly abandoned the sedentary North American lifestyle and are now craving brains instead of Starbucks. Only the sly, crafty and resourceful have survived, roaming the wastelands independently for salvation. Oh, and the Halo playing console junkies have also survived (or at least one of them has). Who would’ve guessed that the double tap is not only a valuable life saving skill, but rule #2 of zombie pandemic survival?

Like any good disaster/apocalypse/survival movie, the cause of the current state of emergency is resigned to being a mere footnote, casually dropped once early on for speculation before being glossed over as if doesn’t matter at all. But for what it’s worth, zombies in this universe originated from an undercooked meal consumed by patient zero, and it’s quite refreshing to see that a zombie movie is so sarcastically glib about what many would hold up as being a primary detail. Truthfully, exposition should hardly be on anyone’s mind when watching this type of movie, so perhaps Zombieland will be remarkable for moving the genre away from trite bio-weaponry science-fiction nonsense and societal tirades into the fluffy gore the topic should always have been about. It certainly doesn’t have that much else to offer, that’s for sure.

You see, for as far as sheer creativity and fun is concerned, Zombieland leaves a bit to be desired. The movie is more of a celebration or amalgamation of zombie culture in general (for better or worse), and in this way the movie relies more on the ideas of other such genre examples instead of bringing new ones to the table. We have Shaun of the Dead’s “zombies leave other zombies alone,” the impact and ferocity of the cannon fodder from 28 Days Later, two variations on a Resident Evil mansion, and a leading cast resembling something you might discover in “Left 4 Shaun of the Dead” (if it were real). Since Zombieland itself is presented as a zombie apocalypse survival after school special, complete with the odd rule reminder, the whole movie feels a bit dull and lifeless before it even gets off the ground. The leading character, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), even offers narration periodically, and unfortunately this places the events in a distant, completed context lessening the immediacy and impact of the surprises.

In general, Zombieland lacks the whimsy and energy that made the previews so enticing. The best thing it offers, the theme park zombie massacre extravaganza, is a relatively small part of the package resigned to the third act. The road getting there is a somewhat bland road of little consequence, occasionally peppered with the odd witticism, insight or encounter. Sure, there’s the occasional clever joke and intermittent interesting kill, but by resting too much on its fascination with its material, Zombieland fails to carve out an identity of its own.

Additionally, Zombieland is filled with bizarre little anomalies that leave hairline fractures all over the premise, the biggest discrepancy for me is lying in the capabilities of leading man Columbus. Perhaps it’s just me, but I personally find it strange that a person living on pizza, Mountain Dew, and World of Warcraft for weeks at a time would enjoy the benefits of impressive cardio during the zombie apocalypse. There’s also banter in the script that leaves a few questions lingering in my mind. When the four heroes hold up in a Beverly Hills mansion for the second act, Columbus and Wichita (Emma Stone) have the requisite romantic interest scene, in which we’re treated to fond memories of their eighth grade selves in 1997. The superfluous character building pause on its own is enough to break momentum, but pay attention to the details and certain truths don’t connect as seamlessly as they should. Thirteen year olds in 1997 create twenty-five year olds in 2009. The way Columbus and Wichita look and are written is more indicative of people who just got out of high school and would be preparing for college if, you know, the world hadn’t gone to hell. Couple that with the twelve year old Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and the fact that we have a pair of sisters separated by over a decade, and the narrative starts becoming a bit askew. Thankfully, Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) is completely separated by the messy chronology. He is the man on whom the success of the film relies, and, quite frankly, he is a perfect fit for the simple man cum redneck renegade zombie slaying virtuoso who’d risk life and limb for a mere twinkie.

I’d be lying if I said that Zombieland weren’t a difficult movie on which to form an opinion. There is indeed the subversive ironic tone that permeates the film, some interesting scenarios, and some astute critiques of the genre, but there’s also the fact that the best moments of the film were not entirely of invention, occasionally appearing to echo other such films. I enjoyed Zombieland quite a bit, but I doubt that the average person would enjoy it to the same degree as I did. Without its peers to support it, Zombieland is neither funny, nor scary, nor gory enough to stand independently. Regardless there will always be a special place for it in the genre’s pantheon.