America's Reply to Shaun of the Dead

(May contain spoilers although I tried to keep out as much as possible for those who haven't seen it. I think it's safe to read without ruining anything.)
ZOMBIELAND

Zombies, plus a "Natural Born Killer," a former "Adventureland" employee, a "Little Miss Sunshine," a "Superbad" cutie, and Bill Murray equals awesome, equals Zombieland. My apologies for being so forward but I needed to release the initial after-the-film amazement. After every Zombie film, I know I and many others think about our emergency zombie plan. This film is how I expect my emergency plan to be.

The film has four zombie survivors fighting their way through Zombieland. The four prevent from getting close by not revealing their names but calling each other by the places they are going or coming from, Columbus, Tallahassee, Little Rock, and Wichita. The film follows and is narrated by Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg). Columbus is a neurotic, geeky hermit. It is surprising that he survived up to the beginning of the film. Because of his fear of near everything, he has constructed rules to stay alive in Zombieland, the kind of rules that we all have created from pass zombie flicks. He later meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a man who has an infatuation with twinkies and zombie killing. He doesn't care much for getting close. Then comes in the love interest and her sister, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). The two turn out to be cunning ladies who have been hustling even before the zombie invasion. They con Columbus and Tallahasse, but naturally their paths intertwine again.

Zombieland doesn't have the witty English humor like Shaun of the Dead but like I said this is America's reply to the film. The film has the comical timing and quotable lines of a Superbad or a Knocked Up. It also had its quirky moments i.e. Bill Murray, twinkies, and random conversations in the car you'd have on a road trip. Zombieland's appeal is in how all these loner characters learn the meaning of humanity and human contact when the world has gone far from anything human. I haven't found meaning in most zombie films since Night of the Living Dead. I've always felt that many zombie films even the best ones were just replications of Night of the Living Dead with twist and such. (Excluding 28 Days Later and the post 9-11 feeling in the beginning of the film and Shaun of the Dead's mockery of the media and entertainment industries exploitation of disasters) Zombieland not only brought comedy to the zombie genre but was able to put forward a new message. The message was not so much about social change, politics, etc but it was a skewed mirror of our world. The survivor's were able to stay human by the human contact they shared. The human contact that doesn't involve a computer screen, sitting on the couch alone watching reruns of Family Guy, or a dinner table full of idle conversations and text messaging.