Adventureland vs Zombieland: What Makes a Bad Movie Good?

You could be forgiven for getting Adventureland and Zombieland confused. Both of them have titles that are essentially Noun + "land." The plots are as follows: in Adventureland Jesse Eisenberg plays a socially awkward, hypersensitive, kid who falls for a girl (Kristen Stewart), who in turn falls for him. Along the way, he gets some advice from an older man-of-the-world type (Ryan Reynolds) and a third party (Martin Starr). However, in Zombieland Jesse Eisenberg plays a socially awkward, hypersensitive, kid who falls for a girl (Emma Stone), who in turn falls for him. Along the way he gets some advice from an older man-of-the-world type (Woody Harrelson), and a third party (Abigail Breslin). Oh, and in Zombieland those four characters are the only people on Earth who aren't zombies.

And therein lies the the key to what takes a pile of dreck (Adventureland) and turns it into watchable film (Zombieland). In both movies, the main plotline involves Jesse Eisenberg's desperate attempts to attach himself to the female lead. However, the people who made Zombieland understood that in order to make that whole bit, which becomes an unbearable disarray of mixxed up emoting and longing and lusting after each other in Adventureland, they would have to distract the viewer with zombies. Slate pointed out (and I agree) that Zombieland is to Adventureland what "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" is to "Pride and Prejudice."

There are, of course, other things that make Zombieland better than Adventureland. For instance, someone told Ryan Reynolds that he wasn't allowed to be Ryan Reynolds in the film, but instead some innocuous attractive male character. Which is a shame, because Reynolds is naturally pretty hilarious. He pretty much is the humor contained in Waiting. Contrast that with Woody Harrelson, who is allowed to go wild, and it's great. He completely overplays his macho stereotype, so that we, as viewers, can instantly know his character (and his likely course of actions), and are allowed to write him off as a flat character. Plus, the twinkie obsession was hilarious. Likewise, the choice of female leads was also pretty key. Emma Stone's character is cheerfully sardonic, and she never hesitates to own the camera. Kristen Stewart's character in Adventureland, however is about as fun and interesting as a briar patch. Stewart seems to equate acting with biting her lower lip, something she uses for pretty much every emotion: interest, frustration, confusion, thinking things over, being upset, etc. etc. Don't get me wrong, she's very nice looking, in a bland vanilla ice cream sort of way, and the lip biting makes her look vulnerable, but there are times when I wish the director had cut, and taken her aside and pointed out that, generally, when we close our mouths, our teeth go on the inside, not the outside. It's really quite a contrast with Eisenberg, who, despite his perpetually wary hangdog espression, learned a long time ago how to slightly modify his facial features differently to convey a wide range of emotions.

I saw Zombieland first, so this might easily be a sort of The Prestige vs The Illusionist type of argument, where the one you saw first shapes how you perceive the second. Both Zombieland and Adventureland scored well on the aggregates, so reviewers view them both positively, although their scores are within a couple percentage points of each other, indicating that they're liked about the same.

If I had to buy one, if, having not seen either, I had to put one on my DVD queue (and I did put one on my DVD queue), it would hands down be Zombieland (and it was).