Zombieland + District Nine

On the same day that I saw The Invention of Lying, which inspired this blog, I also watched Zombieland. (Don’t tell anyone, but I saw four movies that day. At a multiplex, the underpaid and unsupported staff generally turn their backs on this form of Double Featuring.)

I resisted the urge to pair this with another Zombie flick (and I have a few ideas, which I’m not sharing). Plenty of websites will give you the lowdown on the best Zombie flicks to rent. Movie Moron and VideoHound are two examples, with the laurels going to ZombieMovies.org for devoting a whole domain to the sub-genre. (And movie lovers interested in “What If” scenarios would want to scan “How Iconic Movie Characters Would Deal With a Zombie Attack.”)

What impressed me most while watching this cartoonish splatter fest was not the skill of the make-up artists, but the genius of the computer programmers, who seamlessly added a minimum of CGI effects without most viewers ever being aware that there were any at all.

Still, most of Zombieland’s zombie action was handled by at least 40 extras, with only the extremist of violent actions (e.g., zombies being hit by trucks and thrill rides) handled with computers.

The experience made me think of another movie I saw this year, one that relied heavily on CGI for its fight scenes between South African storm troopers and the prawnlike skeletors of District Nine. Despite having the imprimatur of Pope Jackson, that movie left me feeling like I playing Halo, but without the controller.

District Nine took hours to conceive and years to develop. Zombieland, however, seemed like the product of a single all-night bull session over nachos and beer.

A couple of parallels to watch for in this Double Feature…

In the real work, a refugee camp and an amusement park are at opposite ends of the Happy Places scale. But in the CGI world, they’re pretty much the same. Look at the last 15 minutes of District Nine, where I felt like I was being taking on a Universal Studios virtual ride. The gigantic robot sure beats the roller coaster for thrills.

The defining image of each film’s finale featured a protagonist safe inside a steel enclosure, withstanding attacks from all sides. In one, Woody Harrelson survived an onslaught from most every non-speaking actor in the film; in the other, Sharlto Copley held off a small army of real characters just long enough to allow a virtual character to escape.

Zombieland was a lark, it’s amusement park action covering over the fact that the protagonists had no future. District Nine, however bleak it’s condemnation of humanity, still ended with a hopeful note.

So, District Nine gets pride of place in our Double Feature, after Zombieland.

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