*Spoilers for the Zombieland Franchise here

Synopsis from IMDB

Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock move to the American heartland as they face off against evolved zombies, fellow survivors, and the growing pains of the snarky makeshift family.

When the original Zombieland (Juice Rating 82/100) came out, there was a huge swell of popularity for Zombie content in the world. Dawn of the Dead, I Am Legend, 28 Weeks later, and many more movies were all trying to capitalize on the trend. So when Ruben Fleischer dropped a comedy about people living in a world of Zombies I do not know if people got it right away. Of course it became a cult hit though and now ten years later we get to return to this post apocalyptic United States.

The best parts about the original and now the sequel of Zombieland are of course watching the incredible cast just meander their way through the empty world. Living in the White House, hanging out at the mall, and basically just trying to make it through their daily lives.

We see Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) and Wichita (Emma Stone) get romantically closer, and Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) become a father figure of sorts to Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). All of this great family life is shatter though when we see Little Rock run away to Graceland and the rest of the crew needs to go find her.

We then get a Harold and Kumar esque journey where the gang has wild adventures with different characters. They meet perky Wichita foil, Madison (Zoey Deutch), they have an amazing scene with doppelgangers Albuquerque (Luke Wilson) and Flagstaff (Thomas Middleditch), and of course we get a love story for Woody when he meets Rosario Dawson’s character Nevada. All of these adventures bring so many laughs and heart the screen it makes it very hard to stop smiling.

Stock Watch

Stock Neutral – Woody Harrelson seems to be at that point where he just kinda plays himself in everything he is in. That is not a bad place to be when you are as famous as he is, but for this performance I do not think it pushes him to another place career wise.

Stock Up – Zoey Deutch has been in a couple movies I have liked with The Disaster Artist and Set it Up but this is a real break out performance for her. She stole every scene as the valley girl esque Madison and was hilarious with every line she spoke. I am very looking forward to where she goes from here.

Stock Neutral – Jesse Eisenberg is someone I am just a huge fan of as you can tell from my review of The Art of Self Defense. He does more of the same in this, using his skills as a fast talking, nerd adjacent character, he gracefully narrates this story again in a relaxed yet very meta way. I just love his acting style and really feel like he is one of the more unique talents in Hollywood.

Stock Neutral – Emma Stone has won a freaking Oscar so I do not think Zombieland 2 will raise her stock much further. She still is amazing in this and particularly in scenes with Deutch, where she gets to use incredible, disgusted facial expressions.

Stock Down – Abigail Breslin was great as the cute badass in the first Zombieland (Dont even get me started about my love for Definitely, Maybe), but like most sitcoms where the kids grow up I thought her grown up persona was just kind of dull. Maybe it was the writing but I was not a huge fan of this performance.

*A couple other tidbits

• Every newcomer again was incredible and I am so shocked about how well they were integrated into this crazy story.
• Loved the Metallica call back for the opening slow motion scene.

Comedy sequels are incredibly hard, and comedy sequels 10 years later are even harder. I really thought though Double Tap balanced the humor and the heart very well and made this a genuinely funny and heartfelt move. I have this better than the first one and one of the funniest movies of the year.

P.S. YOU HAVE TO STAY FOR THE CREDITS!!!!!

Juice Rating:

*You can find all of my Movie Ratings here.