WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Zombieland: Double Tap, in theaters now.
Zombieland: Double Tap is a film far more concerned with telling jokes than it is with the characters making them. It means that the cast of strong performers don't get anything new to play with over the course of the film.
This is a real shame considering the potentially compelling family story that the plot sets up between Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin).
LEAVING THE NEST
Zombieland: Double Tap takes place almost a decade after the events of the first Zombieland. Tallahassee, Little Rock, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) and Wichita (Emma Stone) have been traveling around the ruins of the United States. They've maintained a familial relationship no matter what area they've gone to. Eventually, the group ends up hunkering down in the ruins of the White House and finding some form of domestic living, even during the continuing zombie apocalypse.
For Tallahassee and Columbus, this is a fun way to live. But as time wears on, the girls become more anxious to roam the world again. Tallahassee dotes over Little Rock, even as she grows older and older. Now firmly in her teenage years but still on the cusp of adulthood, Little Rock wants to spread her wings and find people her own age. This leads her to leave alongside Wichita in the dead of night, and then bail on her sister to go with the guitar playing hippie teen, Berkley (Avan Jogia). Little Rock going off with a hippie sends Tallahassee into a rage, and he agrees to travel with Wichita and Columbus to try and find her.
DADDY DAUGHTER DAY
The relationship between Tallahassee and Little Rock was established in the first film as a surrogate father/daughter one. Tallahassee was eventually revealed to have once been a father to a little boy. But, during the early days of the zombie outbreak, he was killed by a number of zombies. This is what turned Tallahassee into the vengeful zombie killer that he would become. But in Little Rock, Tallahassee finds someone he can connect with and teach about the world. In essence, he gets to become a father again, which is clearly a positive development for the man.
But as with any parent, he eventually has to learn how to cope when they leave the nest and find their own lives. Little Rock going off on her own could be seen as the equivalent of going to a college full of students who the parent doesn't like. For Tallahassee, who still sees her as the little girl he started protecting a decade ago, that's difficult. It gives both characters understandable motives and desires, even if they are counter to one another. It has the potential for engaging growth for both characters that reflects real-life while still maintaining the bonkers zombie aesthetic, and would give the performers something to play off of.
FAMILY LOSS
While the film sets up that idea, it doesn't really do much with it. Instead, it keeps finding distractions to keep either character from actually developing. Tallahassee spends more time quoting Elvis Presley than actually considering his changing relationship with his surrogate daughter. For Little Rock, the commune she ends up on is full of broad stereotypes of liberal college students with no personality behind their obvious jokes. There's no real reason for her to want to stay with such a group, which defeats the purpose of the entire desire she's had all film. Neither of them has any real reflection in these moments, instead just jumping to the next gag. Even when the pair initially believe they are saying goodbye for the last time, it's a moment more focused on the joke of Madison (Zoey Deutch) being emotional at the moment.
It's a weirdly cold way for the film play out. There was the potential to tell an interesting story between the two characters as their lives changed. But in the end, Little Rock decides she doesn't need people her own age anymore and goes back to traveling with the group. There's no payoff to this decision either, it just sort of happens in the climax of the film. As with most of the rest of the movie, the characters themselves aren't what the creators were concerned about. But this means the more engaging family dramatics that could have existed between Tallahassee and Little Rock never got the full due they could have earned.
Directed by Ruben Fleischer from a script by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and David Callaham, Zombieland: Double Tap stars Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg and Abigail Breslin. The film is in theatres now.