Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) have taken up residence in the White House to brave the lingering zombie apocalypse. Their days spent coiled like dragons atop stockpiles of munitions and supplies have led to a general sense of longing. For Tallahassee, it’s the road that’s calling. Witchita meanwhile can’t calm her fear of committment while Little Rock longs for a romantic companion of her own. It’s only the group nerd Columbus who seems to enjoy a sense of post-apocalyptic calm, probably because the apocalypse has afforded him the impossible scenario of hooking up with Emma Stone. When the ladies unexpectedly pack up and head out one night, Tallahassee and Columbus meet a new tagalong in Madison (Zoey Deutch) and brave the great zombieland unknown to reunite the group.

So begins a zombie roadtrip broad comedy that takes us from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to Graceland and finally onto Babylon, a place where guns are melted down into peace signs and tie-dye-clad hippies hope for group sex and more weed. The humor oddly tries to both appeal to both the stoners in the audience and the grumbling Fox News-watching dads angry over their daughters dating musicians. Harrelson’s Tallahassee is the perfect cipher for this disconnect: the Twinkie-craving cultural relic complete with wiener-oriented one-liners.

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A full ten years on the heels of its predecessor, Zombieland: Double Tap smells a lot like rot. Just as time has not been kind to Tallahassee’s grumpy machismo and signature catch phrase (“It’s time to nut up or shut up”) this feels so very dated. An important from the aughts, the uninspired plot machinations, limp jokes, and frequent winking at the camera just aren’t fresh in 2019’s market and you can feel a lot of the humor land like a zombie with a bullet lodged in its brain: with a thud. The suffocating amount of overdub narration just makes the flick feel all the more hacky and starved for a good script (and more brainssss.)

New characters cycle in and out, allowing Rosario Dawson, Luke Wilson, Thomas Middleditch and others a stab at zombie killing, but this remains largely in the hands of its three biggest stars: Stone, Harrelson and Eisenberg, even if it’s newcomer Zoey Deutsch who becomes the unlikely standout as a technically alive but considerable braindead bimbo. A valley girl Juicy Couture-clad sorority girl whose been hiding out the apocalypse in a Pinkberry freezer, her totally over-the-top performance and the kinda inspired “thot in the Z-pocalypse” premise just worked for me.

Though Double Tap warms up as it goes and the heart and humor amplify as it shambles along towards its pretty pointless conclusion, this is nonetheless entertainment saved by a bunch of actors who are better than the often brain-starved material, which goes heavy on the pop culture references, puns, sallow one-liners and dick jokes. Harrelson hams it up like a Thanksgiving roast, Eisenberg tics, Stone simmers, and Breslin, well, she doesn’t do much. The performers are the lifeblood of this rom-com and they make it just entertaining and humorous enough to make the runtime whiz by painlessly enough.

Say what you will about the Venom helmer but it’s undeniably impressive that director Ruben Fleischer (whose best credit remains the original Zombieland) was able to rally the full cast back together for this long-awaited, but totally uncalled for, follow-up, especially with such a lackluster script from Dave Callaham (The Expendables), Rhett Reese (Zombieland) and Paul Wernick (Deadpool). He must have some untold sway around Hollywood circles. I mean how else did he convince Tom Hardy to play the silliest anti-hero this side of Jonah Hex?

Similarly to that maligned comic book movie, the effects here are really lacking, with most of the zombie killing resembling video game cut scenes from the mid-2000’s. The budget just doesn’t cut it and the effect is flesh-eaters who don’t look as good as even their television walking dead counterparts. Fleischer manages a long-take action scene halfway through the movie that is decently enough staged and speaks to his caffeinated energy as a filmmaker but when all is said and done, the entire “zombie” element is often bungled, bringing no real danger or tension to this “land”.

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While most successful sequels magnify their world, populating it with new and interesting ideas, the United States of Zombieland: Double Tap feels like a suburban neighborhood occupied by a handful of nosy neighbors. Characters are constantly running into each other on the open road, a place where happy coincidence and perfect timing abound, the film lacking a greater sense of scale alongside its similarly lacking sense of stakes. The script tosses some red hot deus ex machina or other to overcome its random zombie-based plot obstacles but there is never a sense of danger or that things won’t work out perfectly for all parties involved. And no matter how funny Zoey Deutch is, that just won’t cut it.

CONCLUSION: ‘Zombieland: Double Tap’ may want for brains but the undeniably talented cast make it a decent, if dated and totally unnecessary, watch. Too bad the effects are lame and the humor imported from 2009.