Ah Roland Emmerich, where would we be without you? Along with Michael Bay, Emmerich is almost totally responsible for sucking anything even resembling plots out of Summer Tentpole movies over the last few years. In the case of transformers, at least Bay had an excuse-he wants to flog you toys – so it’s hard to work out why grumble like this ever gets greenlit. One can only assume that Hollywood junior execs are now so young they’ve never seen Ghostbusters, and actually think this is a real movie.
While the Zombie genre is fast becoming overloaded, first time helmer Ruben Fleisher has an ace up his sleeve – he couldn’t care less. While writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have produced a sharp, funny -and most importantly genre-savvy – script, they pull off the clever trick of ramming metadialogue into a post-apocalyptic world that brings absolutely nothing new to the table. There are no knowing nods to the camera, no attempt to make the Zombies unique, they’re your basic, shuffling, brain-munching simpletons, wobbling mindlessly around the Midwest – and latterly, Beverly Hills – and generally annoying our heroes as they casually subvert the romantic comedy road movie for all it’s worth.
Shuan of the Dead made its inherent, twee middle-Englishness a strength, knowing it could never match the apocalyptic imagery of zombie Ravaged American cities of its US counterparts.
